Distribution of Breaks in Aphakic and "Senile" Eyes With Retinal Detachments

THE chief aim of this work is to compare the incidence and distribution of retinal breaks in aphakic eyes affected by retinal detachments with those in a control sample of phakic eyes with retinal detachments. The aphakic eyes were carefully selected to be as free as possible from factors other than aphakia, such as pre-operative myopia and vitreous loss, which might pre- dispose to retinal detachment. Shapland (1934) reviewed thirty cases of aphakic detachment, in 40 per cent. of which retinal breaks were found; these breaks were almost always confined to the temporal halves of the globes and were equally distributed between the superior and inferior quadrants. Schepens and Bahn (1950) and Schepens (1951) stated that in 66 per cent. of aphakic detachments these breaks tended to be peripheral, multiple, and minute; small dialyses, and breaks closely related to meridional folds, were common. Welch (see Maumenee, 1957), however, in a review of cases seen between 1953 and 1956 at the Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute, Johns Hopkins Hospital, noted that 75 per cent. of breaks occurred at the equator.