gms | German Medical Science

Since its first description by Kadanosono the use of Indocyanine green (ICG) to stain the internal limiting membrane (ILM) in macular surgery has become popular among vitreoretinal surgeons. In macular hole surgery, the ILM is being removed in order to alleviate tangential traction. This surgical step is very difficult as the ILM is very thin and practically invisible resulting in a high risk of accidental retinal damageby the surgeon. Staining with ICG visualizes the ILM and makes the ILM removal faster and safer. Several authors report good clinical outcome using ICG staining in macula hole surgery while others observed a less favourable outcome compared to performing surgery without ICG. In various cell culture experiments and animal models a toxicity of ICG coull be shown which seems to be dose dependent. In this paper an overview is given on the current scientific knowledge on this topic followed by its discussion.