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Altitude and gas expansion in repaired rhegmatogenous retinal detachment

Eye volume 37, pages 3861–3862 (2023)Cite this article

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With 40.3 million flights per year and over 4 thousand million passengers flying in the pre-COVID time [1], there is a great chance that patients encounter problems relating to gas expansion. In addition, a significant proportion of patients in higher altitude countries such as Switzerland, Nepal or Peru may experience problems with gas expansion when returning to their home after surgery.

According to the Boyle’s law [2] pressure is inversely proportional to the volume. In other words, if there is a decrease in the pressure on a gas, the total volume of this gas will increase. Based on this law, the interaction between altitude and gas is an important point to consider at the moment of instilling the gas endotamponade during vitreoretinal surgery.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Inselspital, University Hospital of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Rodrigo Anguita, Lorenzo Ferro Desideri & Martin Zinkernagel

  2. Moorfields Eye Hospital, NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom

    Rodrigo Anguita

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  1. Rodrigo Anguita
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  2. Lorenzo Ferro Desideri
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  3. Martin Zinkernagel
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RA, LFD and MZ conceived and designed the article, analysed and interpreted the literature, drafted the manuscript and made critical revision of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rodrigo Anguita.

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Anguita, R., Ferro Desideri, L. & Zinkernagel, M. Altitude and gas expansion in repaired rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. Eye 37, 3861–3862 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-023-02598-6

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