Results of surgical treatment of acute retinal necrosis

Purpose: to evaluate the effectiveness of surgical treatment of acute retinal necrosis. Material and methods. The study involves 34 patients aged 18 to 74 with acute retinal necrosis. Surgeries were performed on 41 eyes. All patients received microinvasive (23 Ga) vitrectomy with membrane peeling, endolaser coagulation of the retina and endotamponade of the vitreal cavity with silicone oil. Operated eyes were divided into 3 groups. Group 1 included 25 eyes which had retinal detachment and vitreous fibrosis at the time of surgical treatment. Group 2 consisted of 9 eyes with retinal detachment but no vitreous fibrosis, and group 3 of 7 eyes with vitreous fibrosis and no retinal detachment. Prior to surgery, visual acuity varied from wrong light perception up to 0.15 with correction. Results. A stable anatomical and optical result was achieved in all cases, complete attachment of the detached retina amounted to 94.1 %, and partial attachment to 5.9 % of the eyes. In group 1, improved visual acuity was observed in 56 % of cases, whereby visual acuity of 0.1 or higher was obtained only in 24 % of the eyes. In groups 2 and 3, visual acuity improved in all cases and proved to be 0.1 or higher, which was due to the predominance of the peripheral necrotic lesion zone, as well as to lower frequency of macular edema and optical neuropathy. In retinal detachment with vitreous fibrosis, a high frequency (72 %) of necrosis spread to the posterior pole of the eye with irreversible damage to the macula and optic nerve was detected. Conclusion. Modern technologies of surgical treatment allow achieving good anatomical results in all patients with acute retinal necrosis. The highest functional results are achieved with peripheral or paracentral lesions, absence of macular edema and optical neuropathy, and macula affected by retinal detachment prior to surgery, which was observed in groups with isolated vitreous fibrosis or retinal detachment. For citation: Neroev V.V., Ilyukhin P.A., Fedotov R.A., Tankovsky V.E. Results of surgical treatment of acute retinal necrosis. Russian ophthalmological journal. 2018; 11 (1): 5-11. doi: 10.21516/2072-0076-2018-11-1-5-11 (In Russian)