: To assess the incidence of unplanned return to the operating room (ROR) at ≤45 days or ≥46 days after primary retinal detachment (RD) surgery and correlate ROR with preoperative risk factors and visual outcomes.

: Retrospective cohort study.

: This was a retrospective review of patients with primary RD surgery to assess for unplanned ROR between January 1, 2012 and June 30, 2014, with follow-up of 90 days to 8 years (mean, 1.5 years). We assessed 268 patients receiving 270 primary rhegmatogenous RD surgeries between January 1, 2012 and June 30, 2014 in an academic tertiary referral center.

: Of the 270 RD surgeries, 82 were complicated (history of proliferative vitreoretinopathy or trauma-related RDs at presentation) and 188 were uncomplicated (RD unrelated to trauma or proliferative vitreoretinopathy at presentation). The ROR rate for all surgeries was 12.2% (33/270) over the follow-up period, with 51.5% (17/33) having reoperations within 45 days. The complicated detachment group had a ROR rate of 14.6% (12/82) over the follow-up period, and 50% of those (6/12) had reoperations within 45 days. The uncomplicated detachment group had a ROR rate of 11.2% (21/188) over the follow-up period. Of those, 52.4% (11/21) had reoperations within 45 days.

: Given that only 51.5% of all RORs occurred within 45 days, a 45-day ROR surgical quality metric that has been previously used may be of limited value for RD surgery. Factors such as age at presentation, number of retinal breaks, number of detached clock hours, use of silicone oil tamponade for pars plana vitrectomy, history of choroidal detachment, high myopia, ocular trauma, and open globe were associated with increasing risk of ROR. Implementing risk-adjusted metrics may provide a more accurate and useful quality improvement metric for evaluating quality of surgical care in vitreoretinal surgery. Am J Ophthalmol 2021;221:•••–•••. © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.