Vitrectomy: The Outpatient Surgery That Can Save Your Vision

Vitrectomy is a surgical procedure used to treat conditions of the light-sensing retina at the back of the eye (e.g., retinal detachment and diabetic retinopathy); its central region, the macula (e.g., holes and puckers); and hardening of the vitreous gel. 

At Retina Specialists, our team of board-certified ophthalmologists performs a vitrectomy to treat a number of conditions, with the goal of preserving your sight. It’s a relatively simple outpatient procedure, but it can have a profound effect — saving your vision. Here’s what the team wants you to know about what vitrectomy can do for you.

What conditions warrant a vitrectomy?

The vitreous humor is the gel-like material at the back of the eye that helps support the retina, the tissue that senses incoming light, codes it into electrical impulses, and sends those impulses to the brain via the optic nerve located just behind it.

Many eye diseases, though, can cause your vitreous humor to harden, cloud up, or fill with blood or other debris, impacting your vision. In addition, if you have diabetic retinopathy, it can cause abnormal blood vessels to grow on the tissue and leak fluid into your eye.

Your ophthalmologist may recommend a vitrectomy if you have:

• Diabetic retinopathy, with bleeding or scar tissue affecting the retina or vitreous gel
• Some forms of retinal detachment
• A macular hole (a hole or tear in the macula, the center of the retina)
• A macular pucker (wrinkles or creases in the macula)
• Endophthalmitis (an eye infection)
• A severe eye injury

They may also recommend a vitrectomy if you’ve had certain problems during cataract surgery.

The vitrectomy procedure

The specifics of the vitrectomy procedure depend on what type of damage your eye has sustained. The ophthalmologist may:

• Remove from the vitreous blood, debris, or other substances that keep light from focusing properly on the retina
• Remove scar tissue that’s wrinkling or tearing the retina
• Repair a retina that’s detached (pulled away) from the eye wall
• Remove a foreign object stuck inside the eye from an injury

During vitrectomy, the doctor also removes some or all of the vitreous from the middle of your eye, replacing it with either a salt water (saline) solution or a bubble made of gas or silicone oil. If it’s either gas or oil, you won’t be able initially to scuba dive or fly in an airplane because of the pressure differential.

During healing, though, your eye replaces the saline or the gas bubble with aqueous humor, the natural fluid the eye makes. A silicone oil bubble has to be removed during a second surgery.

A possible risk after vitrectomy is developing a cataract in the treated eye. This is especially common in people over age 50 who have the procedure. However, if you already had cataract surgery and received a lens implant, vitrectomy won’t harm your implanted lens.

Vitrectomy surgery is usually quite successful, often improving vision or keeping it from getting worse.

If you’re struggling to see and don’t know why, it’s time to come into Retina Specialists for a complete eye exam, including evaluation of the retina and vitreous humor. Give us a call at any of our locations (Dallas, DeSoto, Plano, Mesquite, and Waxahachie) to schedule an appointment.