[Management of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment with unseen breaks: about 50 cases].

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical and therapeutic characteristics of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) with unseen retinal breaks.

Patients and methods: Retrospective study 50 eyes (50 patients) with RRD with unseen retinal breaks in the pre and intraoperative examination. These patients were treated between 2005 and 2010 by vitrectomy or scleral buckling. Retinal breaks were meticulously sought by indentation of the vitreous base. The subretinal fluid was drained by a peripheral retinotomy when a vitrectomy was needed and puncture ab externo when a scleral buckling was performed.

Results: A retinal detachment with unseen retinal breaks accounted for 15% of all RRD operated during this 5-year duration period (2005 - 2010). The average age of our patients was 57 years.Ten were myopic (20%) and 27 (54%) pseudophakic, with inferior RRD in 60% of the cases cases while advanced vitreoretinal proliferation (PVR) greater or equal to stage C in was present in 72%. Primary vitrectomy was performed in 46 cases. Retinal reattachment rate was achieved after a single procedure in 41 eyes (82%). Among them, 40 were operated by vitrectomy and one eye by scleral buckling. The recurrence rate was significantly higher in patients operated by scleral buckling (75%) than by vitrectomy (15%).

Conclusion: RRD with unseen retinal breaks are often seen inferiorly and have a chronic evolution (60%). They concern pseudophakic patients in the majority of the cases. Their poor prognosis and high recurrence rate also appear to be related to an advanced PVR (72%). The good results of primary vitrectomy should be confirmed by randomized studies, especially in phakic eyes.