The role of scleral buckle in experimental posterior penetrating eye injury.
OBJECTIVE
Although episcleral buckles are frequently placed as an additional procedure to vitreoretinal surgery, little is known about their independent effect after ocular trauma. The authors created a posterior penetrating ocular injury model to evaluate the isolated role of primary episcleral buckle placement.


METHODS
Twenty eyes underwent surgery. The penetrating injury consisted of two 5-mm circumferential incisions placed five clock hours apart and 8 mm behind the limbus. A segmental episcleral buckle was placed over a randomly chosen injury site after wound closure. The degrees of fibrous proliferation, traction, and the presence of retinal detachment were evaluated on follow-up examinations. After enucleation and initial fixation, tissue sectioning was performed, and the greatest dimension of the fibrous proliferation at both wound sites was measured with a caliper.


RESULTS
Two eyes were excluded from the study. Three eyes developed a retinal detachment; the remaining 15 eyes showed varying degrees of proliferation and traction on the retina. The greatest dimension of the fibrous proliferation at the buckle site (1.22 +/- 1 mm) was significantly different from that at the nonbuckle site (2 +/- 1.45 mm, P = 0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Primary episcleral buckle placement at the time of surgical repair reduces vitreous traction from the buckle site and decreases the degree of fibrovascular proliferation.
Men
Gamze
G
Department of Ophthalmology, Tulane University Health Sciences Center, 1430 Tulane Avenue, SL-69, New Orleans, LA 70112-2699, USA.
Peyman
Gholam A
GA
Kuo
Po-Cheng
PC
Bezerra
Yanno
Y
Ghahramani
Fatemah
F
Naaman
Georges
G
Livir-Rallatos
Charalampos
C
Lee
Paul J
PJ
D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D015807:Eye Injuries, Penetrating / Q000601:surgery*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005654:Fundus Oculi; D011817:Rabbits; D011897:Random Allocation; D012160:Retina / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D012163:Retinal Detachment / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology; D012591:Scleral Buckling / Q000379:methods*; D014143:Traction; D018630:Vitreoretinopathy, Proliferative / Q000150:complications; D014822:Vitreous Body / Q000293:injuries* / Q000601:surgery; D014945:Wound Healing