Visual outcomes of pediatric traumatic cataracts

Abstract

Phacoaspiration with posterior chamber intraocular lens implantation along with primary posterior capsulotomy and anterior vitrectomy and timely introduction of amblyopia therapy helped in gaining good visual outcome in pediatric traumatic cataract patients irrespective of the age of presentation and the type of injury.

Pediatric Traumatic Cataracts : 10 Year-experience of a Tertiary Referral Center 

“…Some studies that have investigated the effects of trauma type on the nal visual acuity have revealed that blunt traumas have a better prognosis than penetrating traumas [10,14,[17][18][19]. A statistically signi cant relationship was not found between the type of trauma and the nal visual acuity in the current study, similar to two previous studies [4,16]. With both trauma types, the presence of ocular pathologies besides cataracts, as well as other factors that could in uence the nal vision, may explain the different results reported in various studies.…”

“…We observed PCO in all of the 13 cases over 9 years of age that did not undergo PC+AV, as in a previous study [15]. According to statistical analyses, the nal CDVA was signi cantly better in patients that had undergone PC+AV compared to those that did not undergo this procedure [5,16,19]. Therefore, the use of posterior capsulotomy and anterior vitrectomy for traumatic pediatric cataract surgery will help to avoid a high postoperative PCO rate (100% in our cases) and the complications that could develop due to YAG capsulotomy or surgical interventions to treat PCO in older children as well.…”

“…As previously reported, penetrating trauma was more common than blunt trauma in our study [4,13,16,17]. By contrast, Shah et al indicated that blunt trauma was more common than penetrating trauma [18].…”

“…Optic rehabilitation and amblyopia treatment must be started as soon as possible with regular follow-up and the close cooperation of the family in the pediatric age group with a traumatic cataract where an amblyopia risk exists. The presence of amblyopia and the success of treatment are important factors regarding the visual prognosis in these children [1,3,16,31]. We believe that the results were better with appropriate optic rehabilitation, effective patching, and close follow-up for amblyopic eyes observed in this study.…”

“…We believe that this result was in uenced by our study being based on data obtained over a 10-year period, the complications seen during follow-up being managed promptly and correctly, amblyopia being prevented as much as possible, and the follow-ups being performed by the same ophthalmologist over many years. Gogate et al [11] and Jinagal et al [16] also did not nd a signi cant correlation between preoperative vision and nal vision in their studies covering a long time period.…”