Ophthalmology has grown to greater heights with newer
technologies and the goal to provide vision to the ones who had lost it or on
verge of loosing it. Cataract being leading cause of blindness is now easier as
the surgery has been revolutionised with the introduction of phacoemulsification,
femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery, correction of corneal astigmatism
and the use of premium intraocular lenses to get the best post-operative
visual outcomes, however in all of this pre and post operative risks still persist.
This study that I
am talking about today was performed at Department of Ophthalmology, Government
Medical College, Surat, Gujarat, India, where 200 cataract patients went through pre-operative
examinations to understand and utilize the efficacy of the technique Spectral
Domain Optical Coherence Tomography scan (SD-OCT) to yield more favourable post
operative cataract surgeries and avoiding unforeseen complications.
While undergoing
Optical Coherence Tomography examination, 65 (20.96%) eyes out of 310 showed abnormalities.
The most common presentation was epiretinal membrane in 22 eyes (7.09%) followed
by pigment epithelial detachment in 14 (4.5%) eyes. Other findings were drusen (nine
eyes), lamellar macular hole (five), vitreomacular traction (five), IS-OS junction
abnormalities (four), retinal pigment epithelium alterations (two), juxtafoveal
telangiectasia (one), foveal thinning (one), pseudovitelliform lesion (one) and spongy oedema
(one).
The various
findings that were obtained provided us an insight into the appropriate choice of
intraocular lenses, required surgical consents and the therapeutic strategy for each individual
patient.
Thus, the robust
study concluded that Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography scan macula
is an indispensable investigation before cataract extraction to avoid
unsolicited post-operative
surprises and medicolegal conundrums.
Such a study,
should encourage practicing Opthalmologists and specially Cataract surgeons to
consider using the pre- operative procedure, as it comes out to be is of
paramount importance to identify occult macular
pathologies, and ensure positive post-operative visual outcomes and avoid
post-operative complications.
Reference:
Solu
TM, Balraj S, Patel I, Acharya S. Pre-operative optical coherence tomography
macula: An indispensable investigation to predict post-operative outcomes. Glob
J Cataract Surg Res Ophthalmol 2022;1:59-63.