Recovery after retinal detachment surgery: Mor than visual acuity alone

Although retinal detachment (RD) surgery results in anatomical reattachment in more than 90% of patients, visual function loss is a common finding. This does not only apply to patients after surgery for fovea-off RD, as visual function loss has also been observed in patients after re-attachment surgery for fovea-on RD. Visual function loss may not be limited to visual acuity, but can also include other functions (e.g. contrast sensitivity, the presence of metamorphopsia and aniseikonia). However, in clinical practice, visual acuity is the only visual function parameter which is assessed during postoperative evaluation of RD surgery and may not be fully representative for visual function recovery. A more comprehensive evaluation and understanding of postoperative visual function loss would be valuable, particularly considering its potential to negatively impact the quality of life.
In this thesis we investigate postoperative visual function after fovea-off and fovea-on RD. Due to a high prevalence of aniseikonia in these studies, we evaluate a treatment to correct this common visual disorder. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of postoperative visual function on vision-related quality of life.

Factors related to visual function loss after RD surgery include: cataract, epiretinal membrane and cystoid macular edema. However, patients can still suffer from impaired visual function while no abnormalities are identified. This suggests that there are other factors contributing to the occurrence of visual function loss after RD surgery.
In this thesis we evaluate the following factors which may be related to postoperative visual function:
- The extent of macular detachment
- Foveal splitting RD
- Distance between fovea and retinal detachment
- Vascular changes
- Duration of macular detachment