Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management (Aug 2022)

Impacts of Surgeons’ Experience on Patients with Epiretinal Membrane: A Retrospective Study from 2015 to 2020 in Wenzhou Eye Hospital

  • Lin W,
  • Ren W,
  • Chen H,
  • Wei Y

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 18
pp. 835 – 841

Abstract

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Wei Lin,1,2 Wenjun Ren,1,2 Hao Chen,1,2 Yong Wei1,2 1School of Ophthalmology and Optometry, Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory of Optometry, Ophthalmology, and Vision Science, Affiliated Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yong Wei, School of Ophthalmology and Optometry, Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, No. 270, Xueyuan West Road, Wenzhou, 325027, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]: To explore the impacts of surgeons’ experience in patients with epiretinal membrane (ERM).Methods: Patients with idiopathic ERM (334 eyes) who underwent PPV and membrane peeling were included in this study. The surgeries were performed by 9 surgeons. Patients were categorized into the experienced group (surgeons who had performed more than 5000 cases of PPV) and the regular group (surgeons who had performed less than 1000 cases of PPV). The patients were also categorized into five groups according to different preoperative best corrected visual acuity (BCVA): 20/100 or worse, 20/70-20/50, 20/40-20/30, 20/25 and 20/20. Impacts of preoperative BCVA, surgeons’ experience, lens status, and internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling on postoperative BCVA were analyzed.Results: The postoperative BCVA was significantly better at 1 week and 1 month in the experienced group compared to the regular group (p = 0.022 and 0.045, respectively). There were no significant differences in postoperative BCVA at 3 months and 6 months between the two groups (p = 0.268 and 0.233, respectively). Postoperative BCVA at 6 months was similar in the 20/25 group and 20/20 group (p = 0.063); both groups had better BCVA compared to the other three groups. The 20/100 or worse group had the greatest visual improvement among the 5 groups at 6 months.Conclusion: This study suggested that although the experience of surgeons had no significant impact on the final BCVA following PPV and ERM removal, the BCVA during the early postoperative phase appeared to be better in the experienced group.Keywords: surgeons’ experience, epiretinal membrane, pars plana vitrectomy, best corrected visual acuity

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