Complications Associated with Intravitreal Silicone Oil Injection

ABSTRACT

A retrospective study is reported on 96 eyes treated by pars plana vitrectomy and intravitreal silicone oil tamponade for treatment of complicated retinal detachment to evaluate ocular complications secondary to intravitreal silicone oil complete retinal reattachment occurred in 59(61.5%) of 96 eyes at initial surgery. Recurrent retinal detachment and recurrent proliferative vitreoretinopathy occurred in 19(32.3%) and 15(25.4%) of 59 eyes respectively. The major complications associated with intravitreal silicone oil were cataract(96.6% of phakic eyes) and keratopathy(29.2%) and their peak onset was around 3 months after intravitreal silicone oil injection. Other complications were intraocular pressme elevation, hypotony, hyphema, fibrin reaction in anterior chamber, etc. These findings suggest that even though intravitreal silicone oil injection is a valid procedure for treatment of complicated retinal detachment, its removal is recommended after about 3 months before development of vision-threatening complicatoins such as cataract and keratopathy.