Retinal tears and detachment

[dfaden]

A relative of mine (56 years) had a posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) and retinal tears. He has high myopia (-6.0). The retinal tears were discovered early after PVD but the ophthalmologist could not use laser to treat the tears because of intervening vitreous hemorrhage. Instead he decided to wait one week for another try using laser or cryotherapy. However, after one week we found out that my relative had already developed retinal detachment and now he's facing urgent surgery. My questions are: How urgently should the retinal tears be treated in this kind of a case? Did the ophthalmologist make a correct decision when he decided to postpone the treatment for one week risking retinal detachment?

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

With a vitreous hemorrage, it is common for the surgeon to sometimes put the patient on bedrest with  head elevation for a week or so until a better view of the retina can be obtained.  Sometimes after the blood settles the exam may reveal no treatable tear or detachment but other times a significant problem can be identified and vitreoretinal surgery is needed.  In this situation, it sounds like the doctor was trying to save her from vitrectomy and scleral buckling surgery but in the end she needed it anyway. Since I don't know the details of the case  I can't offer any other opinion.   I'm sorry about her misfortune.

[ik88]

Dear doctor,
I am goin in for a surgery today..- had injured my eye which lead to a retina detachment in my right eye..I already have a cataract surgery done in this eye due to an earlier accident so this is goin to be my 4th operation in the same eye..this detachment has not affected my macular area and the doctor said that due to the earlier complications we will decide which procedure to go ahead with on the table itself. Now I have a lot of questions regarding this:
1.Whether redetachment occurs in cases due to trauma and does the detachment take place at the same spot or different ones on the retina
2.detachment is a viscous cycle of,does that mean I now have this disease or is that another reason for detachments as I tore my retina due to a trauma.
3.Is there no chance my vision may improve?as I had very low vision in that eye from before.
4.Does cataract reoccur due to this sometimes?
5.What are my chances of not undergoin detachment again or are those chances generally very few?

I know these are too many questions but I'm freaking out as I'm undergoin my operation in a few hours from now.

[dfaden]

Dear Mr. Kutryb,

Thank you very much for your expert opinion. Now I can understand the doctor's decision. By the way, my relative went through the surgery and according to the doctor it was technically successful. Now we just have to hope he will recover well.