Glial Cell Changes of the Human Retina in Proliferative Vitreoretinopathy

Retinal detachment initiates a complex series of cellular and molecular changes. Because of the difficulty in obtaining retinal tissue from patients with retinal detachments, most investigations of the cellular changes following retinal detachment have been carried out on animal models. Animal experiments suggest that the cellular response to retinal detachment may be broadly described as; partial dedifferentiation of retinal pigment epithelium cells, proliferation and migration of retinal pigment epithelium cells into the subretinal space, degeneration of the photoreceptor outer segments and synaptic terminals, photoreceptor cell death, structural remodelling of second-order and third-order retinal neurons, proliferation of all non-neuronal cell types within the retina and Müller cell hypertrophy leading to glial scar formation. Each of these stages are considered in turn and related to findings in human proliferative vitreoretinopathy.