Advanced Approaches for Management of Retinal Detachment

Abstract

Vitrectomy without scleral buckling1 for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment is often referred to as “primary vitrectomy”2; a term which at least initially implied that scleral

buckling was the standard of care and should be tried before resorting to vitrectomy. This “rescue therapy” approach is considered to be “conservative” and applied in many specialties and disease processes but can produce the unintended consequence of delaying adoption of improved therapies and putting the patient through an unnecessary procedure. Anterior segment surgeons do not try intracapsular cataract extraction before resorting to phaco or RK before LASIK.