Changes in total, anterior, and posterior corneal surface higher-order aberrations after 1.8 mm incision and 2.8 mm incision cataract surgery

Effect of corneal incision features on anterior and posterior corneal astigmatism and higher‐order aberrations after cataract surgery

“…This may be due to the rapid healing of epithelium side compared with the endothelium side which was directly exposed to the inflammatory environment in aqueous humour. This further supported our previous finding that the changes in the posterior corneal HOAs were more pronounced after surgery (He et al 2019).…”

“…The Pentacam assessments were completed as described in our previous work (He et al 2019). Briefly, each patient received measurements preoperatively and postoperatively at 1 and 6 months, and the following data were extracted: (1) keratometry of anterior and posterior cornea, (2) magnitude and meridian of anterior and posterior corneal astigmatism, (3) central corneal thickness (CCT), (4) corneal volume (CV), and (5) coefficients of Zernike polynomials up to 4th order at central 4 and 6 mm diameter zones on total, anterior and posterior corneal surfaces.…”

“…All the cataract surgery was performed by one experienced surgeon (H.W. ), as described in our previous work (He et al 2019). For all patients, a 2.2 mm CCI was created at the 11 o'clock meridian and a 0.6 mm subsidiary incision was made at 2 o'clock meridian using single-use steel blades.…”

“…However, apart from astigmatism, the higher-order aberrations (HOAs) are also important for visual quality (Namba et al 2017;Hughes et al 2020). Previous studies (von Sonnleithner et al 2017;He et al 2019) have observed significantly increased corneal HOAs after cataract surgery and its association with less than optimal visual quality (Namba et al 2017). The surgical procedures, including clear corneal incision (CCI), phacoemulsification, stromal hydration and intraoperative flushing, may all affect corneal regularity on both the anterior and posterior corneal surfaces and consequently induce the HOAs.…”

“…Studies have demonstrated that a wider CCI causes more SIA and corneal HOAs changes (Denoyer et al 2013;He et al 2019), particularly at the posterior corneal surface (Ye et al 2014;Hidaka et al 2016;He et al 2019). Apart from the incision width, the other fine architecture features of CCI, such as incision length (IL), deformities, and distance to central cornea, may also be important for the degradation of postoperative corneal optical quality and deserving of further investigation.…”