TREATMENT OF SUBCHOROIDAL HEMORRHAGE BY POSTERIOR SCLEROTOMY

Abstract

IN 1915 Verhoeff¹reported saving an eye in which an expulsive subchoroidal hemorrhage had developed after a filtering operation for chronic noninflammatory glaucoma. This was the first report of successful retention and maintenance of function of an eye after expulsive hemorrhage, and it is to Verhoeff that credit is due for a method of dealing with this disaster. It was not until 1938 that Vail²reported the second and third cases of successful management of expulsive subchoroidal hemorrhage. He employed Verhoeff's method of sclerotomy as soon as possible after the diagnosis was made. In his first case reported the hemorrhage occurred after intracapsular extraction of cataract; in the second, after a Graefe knife section preliminary to iridectomy for chronic noninflammatory glaucoma. Since Vail's report, there has been no further recorded instance of an eye with useful vision being saved after this type of postoperative complication. Samuels,³in