Tomographic image and visual recovery of acute macula-off rhegmatogenous retinal detachment

Purpose: To observe the macula of acute rhegmatogenous retinal detachment involving the macula with optical coherence tomography (OCT) after scleral buckling and to study the relation between pre- and postoperative visual acuity and the OCT image. Methods: Prospective study of 15 eyes of 15 patients with macula-off rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. We selected cases with preoperative visual acuity worse than 0.5 to analyze the improvement in postoperative visual acuity. The time period between macula-off retinal detachment and surgery was less than 1 week. Results: Indirect ophthalmoscopy indicated that all retinal detachments were reattached at 2 weeks postoperatively. Accumulation of subretinal fluid at the fovea was observed in nine (60%) cases with OCT. In four of these nine eyes, the accumulation of subretinal fluid persisted up to 6 months after the operation. The presence of residual subretinal fluid did not influence visual recovery during the 6 months' postsurgical follow-up. Conclusions: OCT revealed postoperative residual subretinal fluid at the macula in some acute macula-off retinal detachment cases. Residual subretinal fluid did not influence the recovery of visual acuity for at least 6 months after surgery.