outpatient retinal detachment surgery: a preliminary report

retinal detachment surgery has been considered an inpatient hospital procedure requiring preoperative and postoperative hospitalization. in this pilot study, outpatient retinal detachment surgery was performed on sixteen patients and the results (100% success rate after an average follow-up of 8.3 months) were comparable or better than reported overall success rates for retinal detachment in the literature. this prospective and non-randomized study, although small in scale, suggests that ambulatory retinal detachment surgery is safe and successful. this is the first report on outpatient retinal detachment surgery in world ophthalmic literature.