Effects of Air in Cases that Leak from Scleral Incision of Temporal Incision Sutureless Cataract Surgery

PURPOSE: The study was done to evaluate the sealing effect of air on wound leakage, on the cornea and on the postoperative changes of corneal astigmatism in cases that leak from scleral incision due to incompletion of internal corneal lip. METHODS: 30 eyes of 29 patients among 6.0 mm temporal incision and sutureless cataract surgery from December 1997 to October 1998 were examined for the study. RESULTS: The mean preoperative and postoperative 1 day intraocular pressures were 13.45 and 13.19 mmHg. In postoperative 2 months, the corneal endothelial cell loss was about 15%. The mean uncorrected visual acuity of postoperative 1, 2 weeks and 1, 2, 3 months was 0.53, 0.56, 0.56, 0.68 and 0.58, respectively. And the mean best corrected visual acuity of those periods was 0.76, 0.84, 0.80, 0.87 and 0.93, respectively. There was decreasing postoperative corneal astigmatism of the same period such as 0.90, 0.63, 0.68, 0.51 and 0.41 diopter with the rule change. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that when the leakage occurs due to incompletion of internal corneal lip, but the anterior chamber somewhat remains for 6.0 mm incision sutureless cataract surgery to reduce previous astigmatism, injection of air rather than the use of sutures provides the advantage of sutureless cataract surgery as well as the sealing effect upon wound leakage.

Effect of the Length of scleral Tunnel Incision on Postoperative Intraocular Pressure after Sutureless Cataract Surgery

A prospective study was conducted to evaluate the effect of length of scleral tunnel incision on postoperative intraocular pressure(IOP)after sutureless phacoemulsification and intraocular lens implantation in otherwise normal cataract patients. IOPs were measured preoperatively and postoperatively at 6 hour, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months respectively. A total 130 patients(141eyes) completed 6 months follow-up period and were divided into group 1 (3.5mm group, 74 eyes of 69 patients)and group 2(6.0mm group, 67 eyes of 61 patients) according to the length of scleral tunnel incision. A mean preoperative IOP was 14.0mmHg and increase of IOP was noted to 3.1mmHg compared to preoperative value but decreased after 1 day and maintained up to 6 month postoperatively. At 6 months mean IOP was 12.7mmHg and IOP decrease of 1.3mmHg was noticed compared to preoperative value. There were no statistically significant differences in mean IOP between groups during follow-up periods (p<0.05). Number of cases with IOP rise over 22mmHg was 11(14.8%) in group 1 and 11 (6.4%) in group 2 at 6 hour postoperatively but reduced to 3(2.1%). At 6 months no case showed IOP over 22mmHg. This study revealed that the length of scleral tunnel incision did not affect the degree and frequency of postoperative IOP rise fter sutureless cataract surgery.

Astigmatic Changes According to Incision Length After Sutureless Cataract Surgery

We analyzed an astigmatism and an uncorrected visual acuity in 235 eyes for 6 months following sutureless cataract surgery(167 eyes) with 5 mm(Group 1), 6 mm(Group 2), and 7 mm(Group 3) incision lengths at 2.5 mm posteriorly from the corneoscleral limbus, and shoelace sutured cataract surgery(68 eyes) with 7 mm(Group 4) incision length at 1 mm posteriorly from the corneoscleral limbus performed by one surgeon. In three groups of sutureless cataract surgery, the surgically induced corneal astigmatisms were stable after one month postoperatively, but decreasing the length of incision substantially reduced the astigmatic changes(p>0.05), the astigmatic swings(p>0.05) and the astigmatic ranges. In comparison to sutured cataract surgery with 7 mm incision length, sutureless cataract surgery with same incision length reduced the astigmatic changes(p0.05) was noted. In comparison to sutured catarct surgery with 7 mm incision length, suture less cataract surgery with same incision length had higher incidence of an uncorrected visual acuities of 20/40 or better(p0.05) and a better uncorrected visual acuity(p>0.05). And sutureless cataract surgery rather than sutured cataract surgery was associated with a lower surgically induced astigmatism(p<0.01), an earlier stability, and a better uncorrected visual acuity(p<0.01).

The Evaluation of Incidence of Hyphema as Early Complication following Sutureless Cataract Surgery

Postoperative hyphema following cataract extraction surgery is not usually a serious complication and clears quickly in the most cases. Sutureless cataract surgery was reported to have less incidence of postoperative hyphema than conventional cataract surgery. We analyzed the incidence of postoperative hyphema in each group according to the depth and the length of scleral pocket incision in 500 eyes with the sutureless cataract surgery via superior incision during two years. One day after surgery, 90 cases(18.0%) had hyphema and most of them(74.4%) showed grade 1 severity. The incidence of hyphema was 23.0% in the deep incision group and only 11.9% in the superficial incision group(p<0.01). The percentage of grade 1 hyphema was 66.6% in the deep group and 92.6% in the superficial group, then severity was greatly reduced in the superficial incision group(p<0.01). The incidence of hyphema in the group of 7.0 mm in length was highest among the 6.0, 6.5, 7.0 mm groups(p<0.01), and the shorter the incision length, the milder the serverity of hyphema(p<0.01). The incidence of hyphuma was the lowest(6.2%) in the group of 6.0 mm in length and superficial incision, and it was the highest(28.5%) in the 7.0 mm in length and deep incisional group(p<0.01).

Early Result of Corneal Astigmatism in Sutureless Cataract Surgery

Since surgically induced corneal astigmatism was one of important complications after cataract extraction the authors analyzed corneal astigmatism for 3 months after sutureless cataract surgery. Among the patients who were treated with phacoemulsification and PCL implantation by one surgeon (L. E. H.), 40 patients had sutureless cataract surgery by 5mm incision and 51 patients had 10-0 nylon shoelace suture by 7mm incision. Corneal astigmatism was analyzed by algebraic and vector method. Visual acuity was analyzed in patients who were below 60 years age and without posterior segment disorders, whose predictive refractive errors were -0.75D according to SRK/T formula. 0.19D with-the-rule astigmatism induced at 1 day after 5mm sutureless cataract surgery was nearly unchanged until 3 months postoperatively and induced with-the-rule astigmat ism at 1 day after operation was not changed into against-the-rule astigmatism, visual rehabilitation was faster and corrected visual acuity was better.