Purpose: Evaluate the visual results, the complications and the prognosis factors of surgery for idiopathic vitreomacular traction syndrome.
Methods: We retrospectly reviewed 29 consecutive eyes that had undergone pars plana vitrectomy and posterior epiretinal membrane peeling for idiopathic vitreomacular traction syndrome.
Results: The mean follow-up after surgery was 17.7 months. Among the 29 cases, 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 acuity of 0.25 or more had better postoperative vision than the others (0.42vs0.65;p=0.006). During the follow-up, 10 patients underwent phacoemulsification and posterior chamber implantation (47.6%). The mean visual acuity of these 10 cases was poorer than the mean visual acuity of the 8 pseudophakic 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 tomography are necessary to understand the pathogenic mechanisms of vitreomacular interface syndromes.