Pathologic study following vitrectomy for proliferative diabetic retinopathy

This article details the pathologic findings in eyes removed postmortem from a diabetic man with proliferative retinopathy, vitreous hemorrhage, and tractional retinal detachment. Several years before death, to control hemorrhage from extraretinal vasoproliferative lesions, one eye only was treated with argon laser panretinal photocoagulation. Eight months before death the treated eye also was operated for tractional retinal detachment with current vitrectomy methods: membranotomy, partial peeling, and segmentation of preretinal membranes. Despite their atropic clinical appearance, the extraretinal lesions on pathologic study were "active." In the operated and nonoperated eyes the vascular and nonvascular proliferative lesions were of equal severity. The sclerotomy wounds were complicated by intraocular granulation tissue, focal granulomatous inflammation related to suture fragments, and intraocular hemorrhage.