Anatomical and functional outcomes of pneumatic vitreolysis for treatment of vitreomacular traction with and without macular holes

Purpose To evaluate the outcome of pneumatic vitreolysis (PVL) for vitreomacular traction (VMT) with or without full thickness macular hole (MH) < 400 µm. Methods Forty-seven eyes of 47 patients were included who had undergone PVL for VMT with or without MH. Main outcome measures were release of VMT, MH closure, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and adverse events. Results Thirty-three patients had isolated VMT and 14 patients VMT with a MH. Four weeks after PVL, the overall VMT release rate was 35/47 (74.5%): 25/37 (67.6%) in phakic and 10/10 (100%) in pseudophakic eyes ( p = 0.03). Four of 14 MH (28.6%) were closed. Twenty-two of 47 (46.8%) eyes required a subsequent PPV: 12/33 (36.4%) in the VMT only group and 10/14 (71.4%) in the VMT with MH group. Mean BCVA improved from 0.48 (± 0.24) to 0.34 (± 0.23) logMAR at 6 months in patients with VMT alone ( p < 0.001), and from 0.57 (± 0.27) to 0.41 (± 0.28) logMAR in patients with VMT and MH ( p = 0.008). Adverse events included new formation of a large MH in 4/33 (12.1%) eyes, failure of MH closure in 10/14 (71.4%) eyes, progression of mean minimum linear diameter (MLD) MH size from baseline 139 (± 67) to 396 (± 130) µm ( p < 0.001) and development of a retinal detachment in 4/47 (8.5%) eyes. Conclusion While PVL leads to a high VMT release rate particularly in pseudophakic eyes, it is associated with a relatively high incidence of MH formation, MH size progression and retinal detachment.