Materials and Methods: Sixty-one eyes of 61 patients with epiretinal membrane that were followed-up in Ulucanlar Eye Training and Research Hospital between January 2010-June 2012 were respectively evaluated in this study. The best corrected visual acuity (BCVA logMAR), intraocular pressure, slit-lamp biomicroscopy, macular thickness and macular structure obtained with OCT images were evaluated at baseline and postoperative 6th months. Macular structures, including morphology of photoreceptor inner segment/outer segment junction, foveal contour, central macular thickness (CMT) were investigated as predictors visual outcome of the surgery. The cases were divided into two subgroups:Group-A was including patients with idiopathic ERM, group-B with secondary ERM.

Results: The mean BCVA was 0.81±0.28,0.47±0.31 logMAR respectively at preoperative and postoperative 6th months for group-A, and 0.93±0.34, 0.65±0.32 logMAR for group-B. The difference between BCVA before, after surgery was statistically significant in both groups (for group-A p=0.000, for group-B p=0.001). The mean CMT was 468.33±111.30 at baseline, 398.57±78.60 μm at the 6th month for group- A. These values were 485.26±159.52, 326.31±94.58 μm for group-B, respectively. The reduction in the mean CMT was significant in both groups, (for group-A p=0.000, for group-B p=0.001). The association between macular structure and visual outcomes, the IS/OS junction disruption was statistically significant (p<0.05).

Conclusions: Regularity and uninterrupted IS/OS junction on preoperative SD-OCT images was found to be an important predictor of better visual outcomes after epiretinal surgery. Keywords : Epiretinal membrane, foveal contour, optic coherence tomography, photoreceptor inner segment/outer segment junction, prognostic factors