Scleral Buckling VS Pars Plana Vitrectomy: World's Perspective

Objective: The objective is to find out the preferred surgical approach of retinal surgeons from different part of the world for the management of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment.

Materials and Methods: We did a survey via a questionnaire regarding the management of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment whether retinal surgeons prefer scleral buckling or pars plana vitrectomy for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. This survey included 109 retinal surgeons from 18 different countries across the world.

Results: Out of 109 surgeons, 91.7% surgeons perform scleral buckling. The monthly number of buckling surgeries was 5 or less than 5 for 68.8% retinal surgeons while 22% said that they do more than 5 scleral buckling. Scleral buckling was the procedure of choice for 85.3% surgeons if a detachment fits in for the criteria of buckling. In comparison of buckling, vitrectomy was preferred by 66% retinal surgeons while 41.3% surgeons said that they would perform scleral buckling. The number of vitrectomies was 5 or less than 5 for 28.4% retinal surgeons, 17.4% do more than 5 while 33% do not perform vitrectomy. The number of vitrectomies per month for all sort of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment was 5 or less than 5 by 75.2% surgeons while more than 5 vitrectomies was done by 7.3% surgeons.

Conclusion: In this study we concluded that most of the retinal surgeons prefer scleral buckling as the procedure of choice for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment than vitrectomy as it gives a higher anatomical success rate with less pre- and post-operative complications.