COMPLICATIONS OF SURGERY FOR EPIRETINAL MEMBRANES

Purpose: Surgery has been successful in removing epiretinal membranes (ERM) from the macula, allowing some improvement in vision in 80-90% o f patients; however, complications are relatively frequent. We conduct ed a retrospective study to evaluate the rate of peri- and postoperati ve complications and their influence on functional outcome of eyes hav ing been operated on for ERM. Material and methods: Preoperative findi ngs, intraoperative and postoperative complications as final results o f 70 consecutive cases of idiopathic or secondary ERM operated on by t he same retina surgeon were analyzed. Results: In all cases the ERMs w ere succesfully removed from the fovea. The mean visual acuity (VA) in creased from 0.34+/-0.2 to 0.54+/-0.31 (P<0.05) postoperatively. Idiop athic and secondary ERM both showed significant improvement after surg ery. Complications included intraoperative hemorrhage and retinal tear s and postoperative progressive nuclear sclerosis, retinal tears causi ng detachments, macular edema and retinal pigmentary epitheliopathy. F inal VA was not significantly different from the mean after complicati ons, apart from when retinal detachments involved the macular area. Co nclusions: Performing surgery for ERM is worthwhile in eyes with major decreased VA and in eyes with metamorphopsia but only moderately redu ced vision. Postoperative complications are frequent but can usually b e managed successfully. Of them, only retinal detachment has a negativ e effect on the final functional outcome.