Prediction of spontaneous closure of traumatic macular hole with spectral domain optical coherence tomography

It has been known that some traumatic macular holes can close spontaneously. However, knowledge about the types of macular hole that can close spontaneously is limited. In this retrospective study, we investigated patients with traumatic macular hole who were followed-up for at least 6 months without any surgical intervention. Clinical data and spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images were compared between groups with and without macular hole closure. Overall, 27 eyes were included. Spontaneous closure of macular hole was observed in 10 (37.0%) eyes. The holes with spontaneous closure had smaller minimum diameter (244.9 ± 114.4 vs. 523.9 ± 320.0 μm, p = 0.007) and less intraretinal cysts (10% vs. 76.5%, p = 0.001) compared to the holes that did not close spontaneously. The area under the curve of receiver operative characteristic was 0.812 and 0.832 for minimum diameter of macular hole and presence of intraretinal cysts respectively. Multivariate logistic regression showed that the presence of intraretinal cysts was an independent predictive factor for closure of macular holes. The group with spontaneous macular hole closure had a high chance of visual improvement. Our study suggests that the absence of intraretinal cysts on SD-OCT can predict spontaneous closure of traumatic macular hole.