Vitreoretinal surgery, like all surgical specialties, is associated with complications. Advances in technique and technology in the past 10 years have greatly improved the safety of vitreoretinal surgery. The now-common use of microincision vitrectomy surgery has significantly reduced surgery time, minimized conjunctival scarring, and reduced the incidence of entry site retinal tears. Despite this, significant intraoperative and postoperative complications still do occur. Furthermore, in recent times, there has been a further expansion in the applications of vitreoretinal surgery to now cover gene-related therapy for the management of inherited retinal diseases. A significant breakthrough in this area of gene therapy has brought hope of a treatment for diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and Leber congenital amaurosis, to name a few. The treatment strategy in this case involves the subretinal deposition of genetic material utilizing vitreoretinal techniques.

Strategies to reduce the vision-damaging effect of surgical complications include: recognizing the potential for complications, i.e. preemptive prediction, and therefore avoidance of this complication; and techniques for managing the complications and maximizing outcome. Vision-threatening intraoperative complications of vitreoretinal surgery include haemorrhage, tissue trauma including iatrogenic retina breaks and trauma to the macula, photo-toxicity, subretinal injection of dyes, and perfluorocarbon liquids, among several others. One fortunately rare life-threatening complication is ocular air embolism, which should be of interest to every surgeon because of the potential for fatal outcomes. Postoperative complications include endophthalmitis, proliferative vitreoretinopathy (which remains a significant problem to the vitreoretinal surgeon), retinal detachment or re-detachment, cataract formation, macula edema, cornea problems, and refractive issues.

The aim of this Special Issue is to investigate common, rare, new, and well-known complications of vitreoretinal surgery and determine methods to improve the safety of this procedure. It will also set the stage to report on the management of complications and improving surgical outcomes when complications do occur. Original research and review articles are welcome.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• New complications emerging from the newer applications of vitreoretinal surgery
• Virtual vitreoretinal surgery
• Novel strategies and techniques for the prevention of complications of vitreoretinal surgery
• Management of vitrectomy complications and outcomes
• Reports on outcome of proliferative vitreoretinopathy treatment (including the use of intravitreal methotrexate as prevention or therapy)
• Reports on rare complications, e.g. ocular air embolism
• Comparison of complication rates for different surgical techniques
• Systemic effect on vitreoretinal complications
• Managing ocular hypotony following vitrectomy for PVR
• Phototoxicity
• Vitrectomy-associated glaucoma
• New or novel instrumentation for managing or reducing the risk of intraoperative or postoperative complications