Scleral buckling was performed on 116 eyes with rhegmatogenous retinal detachments that spared macular function preoperatively. The retina was reattached in 97% of these eyes after one operation. The remaining cases were repaired successfully by a second procedure. Eight percent of the 90 eyes with preoperative vision of 20/30 or better experienced some visual loss postoperatively despite successful retinal reattachment. In 4% of these 90 eyes, the final vision was less than 20/40. Macular pucker was the most common cause of postoperative reduction in vision.