Remodeling of choroidal venous drainage after vortex vein occlusion following scleral buckling for retinal detachment.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the choroidal drainage route after scleral buckling for retinal detachment.
METHODS: We performed wide-angle indocyanine green angiography with a scanning laser ophthalmoscope in 22 eyes of 22 patients with rhegmatogenous retinal detachment that had been treated with scleral buckling and cryopexy. The 22 eyes had at least one retinal break located posterior to the equator where vortex veins were present. The period between angiography and retinal detachment surgery was less than 3 months in 10 eyes, 3 to 12 months in five eyes, and more than 1 year in seven eyes.
RESULTS: At the site of the silicone exoplant and cryopexy for retinal breaks, one vortex vein was occluded in seven eyes and two in five eyes. Choroidal veins were congested in the quadrant of the occluded vortex vein in two of 12 eyes that had angiography less than 3 months after retinal detachment surgery. In 10 of 12 eyes that had angiography 3 months or more after retinal detachment surgery, new drainage routes developed that connected the sector of the occluded vortex veins to that of the intact vortex veins with venovenous anastomoses. No venous congestion was found in the areas of the occluded vortex veins in the 10 eyes. Venous collaterals formed between the superior and inferior vortex in all 10 eyes and between the temporal and nasal vortex in two eyes.
CONCLUSIONS: New venous drainage routes, which were connected to the intact vortex veins, formed in eyes with occluded vortex veins resulting from scleral buckling surgery and compensated for choroidal venous congestion. The choroidal veins have a great deal of plasticity that enables remodeling of the drainage routes, depending on the pressure gradient.