Background: To determine the safety and efficacy of topical anesthesia in posterior vitrectomy. Methods: A total of 93 patients (93 eyes) with various vitreoretinal diseases not needing scleral buckling and with short predicted duration of surgery underwent posterior vitrectomy under topical (49 eyes) or retrobulbar (44 eyes) anesthesia. Patients in the topical group were sedated with neuroleptic anesthesia. Postoperatively patients were shown a visual analogue pain scale (VAPS) from 0 (no pain) ...