Computer-assisted spectral electroretinography in vitrectomy patients.

Computer-assisted spectral electroretinography (CASE), using full field stimulation in the presence of a rod saturating background light, has been found to be a useful means of evaluating retinal function in patients with vitreal opacities. By this means, cone electroretinograms (ERGs) to white as well as spectrally selective stimuli could easily be detected in 22 of 24 eyes with vitreal opacities obscuring any view of the fundus and with minimal or no detectable ERGs to standard single flash stimuli. The responses to spectral stimuli in the presence of a rod saturating background light provides a means of estimating the optical density of the opacity. The results indicate that most patients undergoing vitrectomy for such opacities have considerable superimposed retinal damage and that the opacities themselves are seldom sufficiently dense to decrease the ERG to any great extent. Five eyes studied before and after vitrectomy indicate that successful vitrectomy has no effect on the ERG. The results suggest that CASE may be a useful substitute to the bright flash ERG for evaluating global retinal function behind an opaque media.