Short-Term External Buckling With Pneumatic Retinopexy for Retinal Detachment With Inferior Retinal Breaks

The study by Cheng and associates one short-term external buckling with pneumatic retinopexy treating retinal detachment with inferior retinal breaks gives us new insight. Rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) with inferior breaks usually is a contraindication for pneumatic retinopexy. Although the authors challenged this restricted area and obtained good results (the rate of successful retinal reattachment within 6 months was 87.9%), as some other vitreoretinal specialists did, the vitreous traction may persist after the removal of the external buckle and gas being absorbed. Does this mean vitreous traction is not an important issue for retinal reattachment, and intraoperative transconjunctival cryopexy and supplementary laser photocoagulation applied around the retinal breaks combined with chorioretinal adhesive force are enough for long-term effects in most cases of primary RRD? As a result, further observation could be added to verify the hypothesis. Vitreous traction could be observed by some means such as optical coherence tomography through the entire follow-up period. Does vitreous traction persist, or is it released because of vitreous liquefaction, after cryopexy and laser photocoagulation?