Welcome

I am an ophthalmologist working in the Jakarta Eye Center, a private eye hospital located in Jakarta, Indonesia. I completed my vitreoretinal fellowship with Professor Ian J. Constable at the Lions Eye Institute in Perth, Western Australia in 1994.

Since 1994 my practise focus has been vitreoretinal diseases. The retina is a nerve layer in the back of the eye which captures images, much as the film in the back of a camera does. The vitreous is the jelly inside the eye. The term vitreoretina refers to disorders of retina and vitreous.

There are many types of retinal diseases, however, at present I am especially interested in a retinal vascular disease called Branch Retinal Vein Occlusion (BRVO).

BRVO is a disorder where a vein in the retina is occluded by downward pressure from an overlying artery. The occlusion causes the vein to leak fluid and blood into the surrounding retina resulting in swelling of the tissue (oedema). This can cause severe loss of vision, especially if it effects the macula, the part of the retina used for reading and central vision. In addition, BRVO causes loss of blood flow in large areas of the retina (ischaemia), which in turn can lead to the growth of abnormal new blood vessels (neovascularization). These new blood vessels break easily and can cause bleeding in the vitreous leading to sudden severe loss of vision.

The goal of treatment of BRVO has traditionally been to limit the side effects of the disease, by performing laser photocoagulation in areas of ischaemic retina, and macular oedema.

In 1999, Dr. E. Mitchel Opremcak, from The Retina Group in Colombus, Ohio, USA, published a paper on a series of patients on whom he surgically seperated the artery from the vein in BRVO, thereby relieving the downward pressure and restoring blood flow. This resulted in an improvement in vision and visual fields in a majority of his patients.

I have performed five of these operation at the Jakarta Eye Center (JEC) up to and have found it a very promissing way to manage BRVO.

As with all vitreoretinal surgery, there is a potential for very serious complications with vein decompression surgery. The risks are discussed with all patients before surgery and they are asked to sign a comprehensive informed consent from.

If you are interested in seeing some "before and after" pictures of BRVO patients who underwent vein decompression surgery at JEC, please click on the link below.