Retinal detachment. A study of a population-based patient material in Sweden 1971-1981. III. Surgical results.

Surgical results and complications were studied retrospectively in 590 cases of retinal detachment in a population-based material of 538 patients. Of the 590 cases 96.3% were operated upon, and 22.9% of these underwent one or more re-operations. The technique used was cryo- or photocoagulation (100%) + scleral buckling or an encircling band (96%) + drainage of subretinal fluid (80%). The surgical complications were intraocular bleeding (13%), choroidal detachment (7%), and proliferative vitreo-retinopathy (5%). All complications were significantly more frequent after re-operations. Complete re-attachment was achieved in 78.1%. The re-attachment rate was significantly lower in aphakic cases (66.7%) than in phakic non-traumatic cases (80.8%). The visual acuity in re-attached cases was better than 0.5 in 33.7% and better than 0.1 in 72.2%.