Vitectomy
Can I prevent vitreoretinal traction?
Duration 0:55
Professor Andrew Luff, Ophthalmic Surgeon and Founding Consultant, discusses what causes vitreoretinal traction. He explains that it is your choice when you seek treatment, as some people may experience few symptoms, whilst others have a significant change to their vision.
Professor Andrew Luff, Ophthalmic Surgeon and Founding Consultant, discusses what causes vitreoretinal traction. He explains that it is your choice when you seek treatment, as some people may experience few symptoms, whilst others have a significant change to their vision.
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Vitreomacular traction is a condition we’ve become much more aware of since we started doing scans. The sort of scan your optician can now do to visualise the centre of your retina. As we age, the jelly inside the eye starts to shrink, it begins to contract, and the layer touching the retina tries to separate. The separation, vitreous detachment, is a normal event in the life of the eye. For reasons we simply don’t understand, occasionally, that jelly gets stuck, and rather than separating from the macular, it pulls. As it pulls, it distorts, and it severely damages your vision. There’s nothing you can do to prevent it. It’s just part of the normal ageing change within the eye. What we have to decide between us is at what point does it become sufficiently severe to merit intervention.
