risk factors
Last reviewed 01/2018
Factors associated with a greater incidence of retinal detachment include:
- sex - more common in men than in women
- age - degenerative changes in the vitreous - syneresis - predisposing to posterior vitreous detachment
- family history of retinal detachment
- myopia
- risk of posterior vitreous detachment is high in these patients
- also the peripheral retina is thinner which leads to tears or hole formation during posterior vitreous detachment (1,2)
- trauma – important in young patients, may cause premature posterior vitreous detachment (2)
- aphakia - no lens
- cataract - congenital; or following extraction -
- accelerate vitreous liquefaction and posterior vitreous detachment particularly if there was vitreous loss (1)
- 1 % of patients develop retinal detachment in the following weeks to years after cataract surgery (2)
- retinal detachment in fellow eye - 25% chance of the second eye being affected
- dehydration, for example, long plane flights
- diabetic retinopathy
- congenital eye diseases (1,2)
Reference: