Reassessment of Scleral Depression in the Clinical Setting

The standard of care for diagnosis of peripheral vitreoretinal pathology (such as retinal breaks, tears, or holes) is to perform indirect ophthalmoscopy with scleral depression; however, this is only supported by the “lowest strength of evidence.”1 For the patient, scleral depression causes discomfort owing to mechanical pressure on the globe. The few published reports in the literature on the topic of scleral depression describe the technique of scleral depression, but do not provide any comparison with examination without scleral depression.