Pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) is a surgical approach mainly chosen for complex rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) repair with highly variable functional results. The aim of this analysis was to evaluate the impact of preoperative factors and postoperative optical coherence tomography (OCT) macular findings on the functional outcome of patients undergoing primary PPV for RRD. A retrospective analysis was performed on 88 eyes of 88 patients with complex RRD managed by PPV. A swept source OCT was used to obtain images at the postoperative visit at least 6 months after PPV. Hierarchical linear regression model was used to evaluate the influence of preoperative factors related to patient, ocular clinical and postoperative OCT macular findings on functional outcomes of PPV for RRD. Duration of symptoms (p = 0.031) and discontinuity of the ellipsoid zone (EZ) on OCT (p = 0.024) showed statistically significant negative correlation, while preoperative best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA; p < 0.001) showed statistically significant positive correlation to postoperative BCVA. Preoperative BCVA and duration of symptoms can be used as prognostic factors for visual outcome in patients undergoing PPV for RRD. Discontinuity of the EZ was the only postoperative OCT variable related to worse postoperative visual outcome.
Keywords: discontinuity of ellipsoid zone; optical coherence tomography; pars plana vitrectomy; rhegmatogenous retinal detachment; visual outcome.