Sympathetic Ophthalmia Two Weeks After 23-Gauge Vitrectomy

Abstract

Sympathetic Ophthalmia (SO) is a rare disease that presents as a bilateral, diffuse, granulomatous panuveitis. Sympathetic Ophthalmia is a clinical diagnosis with history of penetrating ocular injury in the inciting eye and presence of panuveitis in the sympathizing eye. Though early enucleation is believed to minimize the risk, there have been reports of SO even after enucleation of inciting eyes. The possible association between vitrectomy and SO has been initially proposed by Gass [9] and later studied extensively in a large cohort in the UK with an estimated SO risk of 1 in 799 vitrectomies [11]. There have been several case series and reports of SO following vitrectomy, however only three documented cases of SO following vitrectomy without use of silicone oil. These cases demonstrated an onset of SO ranging between 4 weeks to 2 months. We present a patient with SO in the sympathizing eye presenting 16 days after an uncomplicated 23-gauge (23G) sutureless pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) without the use of silicone oil.

Sympathetic ophthalmia after vitreoretinal surgery: a report of two cases

“…6 Some SO cases occur following ocular surgeries, such as RD surgery, cataract surgery, trabeculectomy, and penetrating keratoplasty. 7 PPV reportedly increases the risk of postsurgical SO because this surgery may cause a break in the blood–retinal barrier, which is deemed responsible for SO. 8–10 To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first report of postsurgical SO from China.…”