outcomes of heavy silicone oil tamponade in complicated retinal detachment surgery

purpose: to evaluate the outcomes of internal tamponade using heavy silicone oil in complicated retinal detachment (rd) surgery. methods: in this interventional case series, patients with complicated rd involving the inferior retina were enrolled. inclusion criteria included rd secondary to proliferative vitreoretinopathy (pvr cp6 and/or ca6) involving the inferior retina, inferior or posterior tears, giant tears, penetrating trauma or rd combined with choroidal detachment. heavy silicone (oxan hd, bausch & lomb, usa) was injected at the end of surgery after peeling of retinal membranes or retinotomy. follow-up examina-tions were scheduled one day, one week, one month and four months after surgery. additional visits were made depending on the condition of the eye. results: seventeen eyes of 17 patients with mean age of 45.4±12.2 (range 19-71) years underwent vitrectomy and heavy silicone oil tamponade. mean follow-up was 11.4±3.5 (range 4-16) months. there was total rd in 10 cases, subtotal rd involving the inferior retina in 6 patients and rd associated with choroidal detachment in one. best-corrected visual acuity (bcva) before surgery was lp or hm in 13 eyes and counting fingers at 0.5 to 3 m in 4 eyes. during the follow-up period, the retina remained attached in 12 cases (70/5%) but 5 eyes needed further vitrectomy for reattachment. bcva improved from 1.95±0.09 logmar preoperatively to 1.5±0.35 four months after the operation (p=0.045). after 4 months’ follow-up bcva was hm in 4 eyes and 0.5 m to 20/200 in 13 eyes. transient iop rise occurred in one eye and silicone oil emulsification was seen in another eye. conclusion: heavy silicone oil tamponade had favorable results in terms of anatomical attachment of the retina and visual acuity.