Gas is often implanted into the vitreous cavity for the treatment of a variety of vitreoretinal diseases. For example, sometimes pure expansile gas is used in patients undergoing pneumatic retinopexy. When a vitrectomy is performed, sometimes gas is implanted to fill the entire vitreous cavity, for example, to treat retinal detachments or macular holes. In these cases, pure expansile gas needs to be diluted to a non-expansile concentration. In this episode we show you how to draw up and dilute gas and how to implant it into the vitreous cavity. We discuss the properties of various gases, different gas options depending on the clinical scenario, as well as some vision-threatening complications that can occur with use of gas.
