Idiopathic vitreomacular traction syndrome. Vitrectomy results

Purpose: Evaluate the visual results, the complications and the prognosis f actors of surgery for idiopathic vitreomacular traction syndrome. Methods: We retrospectly reviewed 29 consecutive eyes that had undergone pa rs plana vitrectomy and posterior epiretinal membrane peeling for idiopathi c vitreomacular traction syndrome. Results: The mean follow-up after surgery was 17.7 months. Among the 29 cas es, 21 were phakic. Visual acuity improved by 2 lignes or more in 72.4% of the cases and the mean improvement was 2.7. Eyes with preoperative visual a cuity of 0.25 or more had better postoperative vision than the others (0.42 vs0.65;p=0.006). During the follow-up, 10 patients underwent phacoemulsific ation and posterior chamber implantation (47.6%). The mean visual acuity of these 10 cases was poorer than the mean visual acuity of the 8 pseudophaki c patients that underwent vitrectomy (0.45vs0.61,p=0.046). Five recurrences of epiretinal membrane were observed (17.2%). Conclusions: Surgical treatment of vitreomacular traction syndrome improves visual acuity in most of cases. Further studies with optical coherence tom ography are necessary to understand the pathogenic mechanisms of vitreomacu lar interface syndromes.