Vitrectomy Results Of Macular Retinal Thickness And Vision Acuity For Idiopathic Epiretinal Membranes

Background: To evaluate the relationship between visual acuity and the changes of macular retinal thickness before and after 23G vitrectomy to the idiopathic epiretinal membranes (ERMs) by using optical coherence tomography (OCT). Methods: In this retrospective study, we examined 82 eyes of 78 patients who were confirmed as having an idiopathic epiretinal membrane and accepted pars plana vitrectomy combined with internal limiting membrane (ILM) and epiretinal membrane peeling. All patients underwent complete ophthalmologic examination, including best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), slit-lamp examination, intraocular pressure, OCT and fundus photography. Patients were followed for six months. The relationship between the BCVA and retinal thickness, via OCT features were evaluated. Results: The BCVA improved from 0.26 +/- 0.16 to 0.36 +/- 0.16 (t = 9.843, P < 0.0001), the mean foveomacular retinal thickness decreased from 506.41 +/- 112.67 mu m to 442.39 +/- 82.10 mu m (t = 5.526, P < 0.0001) after vitrectomy for IMEM patients. The parafovea macular retinal thickness decreased from 453.66 +/- 79.36 mu m to 409.95 +/- 61.63 mu m (t = 6.164, P < 0.0001) postoperatively. There was not a statistically significant difference between preoperative perifovea thickness (365.93 +/- 50.84 mu m) and postoperative perifovea thickness (356.76 +/- 54.20 mu m) (P > 0.05). Post-operation BCVA has an obvious linear correlation with preoperative BCVA, so does foveomacular thickness, parafovea thickness and perifovea thickness. Preoperatively, visual acuity correlated with fovea thickness (r = -0.4437, P = 0.0041), and postoperatively (r = -0.3345, P = 0.0349). Preoperatively, visual acuity correlated with parafovea thickness (r = -0.4160, P = 0.0076), and postoperatively (r = -0.3758, P = 0.0169). However, no correlation was observed between preoperative BCVA and preoperative perifovea thickness (r = -0.2609, P = 0.1040). Also, there was not a significant correlation between postoperative BCVA and postoperative perifovea thickness (r = -0.3101, P = 0.0515). Conclusion: Vitrectomy combined with ILM and epiretinal membrane peeling can enhance visual acuity and improve macula morphology in the treatment of ERMs, while most of patients did not recover foveal depression after surgery.