Sixteen patients with phakic, nontraumatic rhegmatogenous retinal detachment were used in a prospective study on the change of the visual field following surgical treatment of the disease. The differential light threshold was measured across the visual field before and after surgery up to 1 year by means of the Octopus automated static perimeter. The visual sensitivity recovered prominently in the initial one to two months, followed by a slight improvement for up to a year. The final prognosis of visual sensitivity was correlated with the duration of detachment, but not with its extent or height. The recovery in the peripheral visual field was less remarkable, with residual slight defect. There was more improvement in visual sensitivity at the fovea than in visual acuity.

SUMMARY A 20-year-old healthy man suffered rapid loss of bilateral central vision with placoid lesions at the level of the retinal pigment epithelium and choriocapillaris scattered in the posterior pole of the fundus. In addition, acute vasculitis of the retinal veins was remarkable and widespread throughout the posterior pole and midperiphery. These inflammatory signs subsided in several weeks and were succeeded by recovery of the normal visual acuity with residual pigment derangements in the deep retina. Sixteen months after the onset of the disease choroidal neovascular membranes developed in the macular region of the left eye, followed by haemorrhagic macular detachment and marked visual loss. Significant increases in the serum cold agglutinin titre occurred as isolated laboratory findings concurrently with the acute stage of the disease and the late macular complication, though no clinical or other laboratory sign suggested viral infection.

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