Anatomic Success of Scleral Buckling for Rhegmatogenous Retinal Detachment – A Retrospective Study of 524 Cases

initially attached retina after 1 scleral buckling surgery expe-rienced a redetachment in the postoperative course and were successfully treated in 60/85 cases. In phakic patients (n = 359) the primary success rate was 89.7%, whereas in pseudophakic patients (n = 165) a primary success rate of 73.9 % was obtained. The primary success was additionally influenced by the extent of the retinal detachment mea-sured in clock hours (p ! 0.001), undetected holes (p = 0.004), small (p = 0.037) and no gas tamponade (p = 0.021). In simple, medium and severe cases, phakic patients always achieved better anatomic results (89.9, 89.1 and 90.2%) compared to pseudophakic ones (82.5, 70.3 and 36.4%). Conclusion: Scleral buckling is a very good surgical option in phakic pa-tients irrespective of the preoperative severity and simple cases in pseudophakic patients. Scleral buckling represents a surgical technique worth being trained and performed in the light of favourable results especially in phakic eyes. Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel Key Word