The balloon-gas procedure: a technique for repair of retinal detachments requiring large volumes of gas.

This report describes the balloon-gas procedure, a technique for obtaining large volumes of intraocular gas. With the balloon-gas procedure a kind of "external fluid-gas exchange" allows for the safe injection of up to 1.0 ml of gas without previous pars plana vitrectomy or surgical drainage of subretinal fluid. From April 1985 to October 1988, in Tübingen, this procedure was utilized in 36 retinal detachments with breaks not suited for scleral buckling: giant tears (nine eyes), large dialyses (seven eyes), posterior breaks (16 eyes), and multiple breaks at different latitudes (four eyes). Follow-up ranged from six to 28 months (average 16 months). Initial retinal reattachment was achieved in 28 eyes (77.8%). Reasons for initial failure were proliferative vitreoretinopathy in six eyes, and a missed break in two. Redetachment occurred in three eyes. All 11 failures were reoperated using segmental sponges (eight eyes) and gas injection (three eyes). Final reattachment was achieved in 29 of the 36 eyes (80.6%), and final failure was due to proliferative vitreoretinopathy in all seven detachments.