Prospective validation of a virtual post-operative clinic in vitreoretinal surgery

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of asynchronous virtual post-operative assessments following vitreoretinal surgery and procedures compared to traditional face-to-face assessments in a high-volume tertiary eye centre.

Methods: Prospective comparative clinical series study of patients who had undergone vitreoretinal surgery or post-laser retinopexy. Patients received both virtual and face-to-face assessments. The virtual assessment included clinical questions, visual acuity measurement, and virtual retinal imaging using ultra-wide field (UWF) imaging and macular optical coherence tomography (OCT). Face-to-face assessments involved standard clinical examinations.

Results: We included 142 patients undergoing a variety of vitreoretinal procedures. We showed comparable results between virtual and face-to-face assessments in both, post-operative and post-laser treatments. UWF imaging with macular OCT demonstrated potential for effective virtual post-operative assessment. The virtual assessment has a sensitivity of 91% and specificity of 100% for detecting retinal detachments with 100% specificity and 100% sensitivity for detecting new retinal tears or insufficient laser treatment.

Conclusions: The implementation of asynchronous virtual post-operative assessments following a variety of vitreoretinal procedures is a promising alternative to traditional face-to-face assessments. Virtual assessments using UWF imaging and macular OCT showed high sensitivity and specificity. Virtual post-operative clinics offer the potential to improve patient access and decrease the clinical burden, especially with the continuing evolution of telemedicine technologies and imaging modalities.