A study of metamorphopsia following rhegmatogenous retinal detachment surgery

Abstract Purpose Our objective was to quantitatively investigate metamorphopsia in patients who had undergone pars plana vitrectomy for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment at the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Szeged. We aimed to compare our findings with perioperative clinical data, and in particular the patients' optical coherence tomography (OCT) results. Materials/Methods Our study is a retrospective analysis of data from 23 patients who had undergone surgery for retinal detachment. We evaluated best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), metamorphopsia (MM) using M-CHARTS, and macular morphological abnormalities using OCT images in patients who attended regular follow-up visits 1–6 months after the surgery. Results The mean preoperative BCVA of the patients was 0.4, while the mean postoperative BCVA was 0.6, indicating a significant improvement ( P = 0.03). We observed a negative correlation between preoperative BCVA and postoperative MM (Pearson's r = −0.27), indicating that lower preoperative BCVA was associated with higher postoperative MM. Additionally, we noted a strong trend between disintegration of the ellipsoid zone (EZ), abnormality of the external limiting membrane (ELM), and MM ( P = 0.051 and 0.072 respectively). Conclusions While no significant correlation was found between MM and specific perioperative factors, we observed a notable trend between EZ disintegrity and MM, as well as abnormal ELM and MM. This trend is anticipated to become significant with higher numbers of patients.