Sympathetic ophthalmia: induced by vitrectomy not by trauma.

A case of sympathetic ophthalmia that occurred after corneoscleral laceration due to blunt trauma and after vitrectomy was encountered, and the patient was treated without enucleation of the exciting eye; this is the sixteenth case of sympathetic ophthalmia reported to occur after vitrectomy. In the reported cases including the present one, the intervals between the primary trauma or primary intraocular surgery and secondary vitrectomy and the onset of sympathetic ophthalmia were compared with those in patients who suffered from this disease without vitrectomy. The statistical analysis by the probit method revealed that the onset of sympathetic ophthalmia was critically influenced by the secondarily delivered operation, ie, vitrectomy (P less than 0.05).