Spontaneous resolution of a postvitrectomy macular hole retinal detachment.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this report was to describe a case of spontaneous resolution of a large postvitrectomy macular hole retinal detachment.

METHODS

Case report and optical coherence tomography imaging.

RESULTS

A 64-year-old man with history of macula-off retinal detachment and 4 previous vitrectomies in the left eye developed a macular hole and associated retinal detachment 3 months after his last vitreoretinal surgery. Two months later, examination revealed that the macular hole had spontaneously closed, and the retinal detachment had resolved.

CONCLUSION

Spontaneous resolution of macular hole-associated retinal detachment in a previously vitrectomized eye has not been reported previously. Changes in tangential traction by the associated epiretinal membrane, improvement of the cystoid changes noted at the edge of the macular hole, and/or proliferation of glial tissue to bridge the hole, along with the absorption of the subretinal fluid by the retinal pigment epithelium pump contributed to this rare event have been hyphothesized.