Incision Site in Manual Small Incision Cataract Surgery in Case of Preoperative Direct Astigmatism

Abstract

We compared surgically induced astigmatism (SIA) by a superior incision with a temporal incision in manual small incision cataract surgery (MSICS), in patients with bilateral direct (regular) preoperative corneal astigmatisms. Patients and method: We carried out a prospective study from July 1 st 2018 to September 30 th 2019 in the department of ophthalmology at the University Hospital of Brazzaville. Keratometric readings were recorded before surgery to assess preoperative corneal astigmatisms. Keratometric evaluation was done 45 days post-operatively. Patients were followed 90 days after surgery in order to assess the healing of the surgical site. The surgically induced astigmatism (SIA) is the difference in the magnitude vectors between the preoperative and postoperative astigmatism. The result was positive if the postoperative astigmatism was greater than the preoperative astigmatism and negative if the postoperative astigmatism was less than the preoperative astigmatism. Results: Our study sample included 48 eyes from 24 patients, including 24 operated on temporal incision and 24 in superior incision. The average SIA for superior incisions was 0.33 ± 1.55 diopters (D), versus 0.33 ± 1.44 for temporal incisions. For superior incisions the SIA was 0.81 for astigmatisms lower than 2D, against 0.16D for the temporal incisions. On the other hand, for preoperative astigmatisms greater than 2D, the surgically induced astigmatism was −0.62D, marking a decrease in preoperative astigmatism for the superior incisions against an increase of 0.5D for the temporal incisions. The healing was delayed for the temporal incisions responsible for discomfort persisting beyond 45 days. Conclusion: The temporal incision had better re-How to cite this paper: