Program list

SYMPOSIUM: WEAPONS CHOICES
SECTION: Tamponade
Moderators: Klaus Lucke, Athanasios Nikolakopoulos
Monday, September 15th, 2003 ; 8:30 - 10:30

IS GAS INJECTION A PVR AND AN INFLAMMATION INDUCTOR?
Didier Ducournau, MD
Nantes, France

In many publications, we can found that gas injection is responsible for inducing vitreous inflammations and PVR. No scientific argument is given. However, this is true that:
- when a large bubble of gas is injected, the remaining vitreous looks denser and can give the illusion to be inflamed.
- gas injection performed on without indentation, performed on a vitreogenous detachment will result in a high number of failure with an advanced PVR. On the contrary, a buckling which will relax the vitreous traction and/or a vitrectomy which will remove this traction will have a better efficiency. This is not a proof of PVR inducing activity but only a mistake on the rational for gas injection.
In order to see if there is any scientific proof of these assumptions, we performed a prospective study on retinal detachments easy to treat, some with gas and some without. Laser cell flare meter at D-1, D+1, D+2, D+3, D+4, D+5 and D+21 were performed analysing the inflammation and the blood aqueous barrier break down. The serie with gas shown a lower amount of cells and a lower level of flare proving that gas is nor inflammatory, neither PVR inductor.