Idiopathic preretinal gliosis.

Of 89 patients with idiopathic preretinal gliosis examined between 1970 and 1978, 52 were examined within six months of the onset of symptoms. Forty-seven patients were men and 42 were women; 83 (93%) were more than 50 years old. Initial visual acuities were 6/12 (20/40) or better in 60 of 98 eyes (61%). Nine patients had initial bilateral involvement, and the second eye became involved in one other patient during the follow-up period. Posterior vitreous detachment was present in 59 of the 64 eyes (92%) for which the state of the vitreous had been recorded; 16 of 74 eyes (21%) had fluorescein leakage into the macula. During a mean follow-up period of 31.1 months, the appearance of the fundus remained unchanged in 65 of 72 eyes (90%). Fifty-one of the 72 eyes (71%) had final visual acuities within one line of those recorded at the first examination. Spontaneous improvement of two lines or more occurred in only two patients, accompanied in both cases by an apparent decrease in the severity of the retinal wrinkling. Although these data indicated that idiopathic preretinal gliosis is generally a nonprogressive condition that does not cause serious visual loss, those patients followed up for more than three years did have a small overall decline in visual acuity.