A comparison of outcomes after indocyanine green and trypan blue assisted internal limiting membrane peeling during macular hole surgery

AIMS: To compare the anatomical and visual outcomes of macular hole repair surgery using indocyanine green (ICG) or trypan blue (TB) staining of the internal limiting membrane (ILM). METHOD: Retrospective analysis of 37 eyes from 37 consecutive patients with stage 2, 3, and 4 idiopathic macular holes who underwent macular hole repair by one surgeon using the same technique but utilising different dyes for ILM peeling. In 19 patients ICG was used while 18 patients had TB. The anatomical and visual results in these two groups were compared. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in the demographic and macular hole characteristics of the ICG and TB groups. Macular hole closure was achieved in 91.9% of all patients of which the ICG group had an 89.5% hole closure rate and the TB group had a 94.4% hole closure rate. After excluding cases with failed hole closure and other vision affecting complications, there was no significant difference between the preoperative visual acuities in the TB and ICG groups but the postoperative visual acuities were better in the TB than the ICG group (p = 0.036). The TB group also had more Snellen lines of improvement than the ICG group (2.94 v 1.79 lines; p = 0.046). CONCLUSION: TB appears to be less toxic than ICG when used in dye assisted peeling of ILM during macular hole repair as reflected by the better visual results in the TB group of patients.