Objective:

To compare the incidence and onset time of epiretinal membranes after two surgical techniques to treat retinal detachment (retinopexy).

Method:

Non-experimental, retrospective, longitudinal and comparative study in patients treated of primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachment either with cryotherapy and scleral buckle (group 1) or vitrectomy techniques (group 2), without an epiretinal membrane at the moment of surgery. We compared the incidence of postoperative epiretinal membrane between groups, the median onset time (Mann-Whitney's U) and the proportions of eyes without an epiretinal membrane along time with a survival analysis (log-rank).

Results:

112 eyes in group 1, 48 in group 2; the incidence of epiretinal membrane was 23.2% in group 1 and 20.8% in group 2 (p = 0.8). The median time of onset was 12 weeks in group 1 (interquartile rank 8.75-16) and 18 in group 2 (12.5-22, p = 0.02). The log-rank test showed no differences of incidence along the follow-up between groups (p = 0.6).

Conclusions:

Epiretinal membranes appear early after retinopexy, before in eyes treated with crio-retinopexy. Although their incidence does not differ between groups, detecting them could start two months after a scleral buckle and three after a vitrectomy procedure.