THE EFFECT OF PHACO CATARACT SURGERY ON THE VISUAL ACUITY OF VISUALLY IMPAIRED CATARACT SUBJECTS

ABSTRACT

Cataract is one of the leading causes of Visual Impairments and Low vision in adults as it represents an estimated 50% or more of the global burden of visual impairment or blindness in people over the age of 40 years.. This study was aimed at evaluating the effect of phaco cataract surgeries on the visual acuity of visually impaired cataract subjects. The distribution of selected ocular biometric indices among the study population was also assessed. 94 subjects which comprised of 46 males and 48 females who had unilateral phaco cataract surgery during the study duration were used for this study. Preoperatively, 72 of the total eyes that were operated (76.6%) had a visual acuity of less than 6/18 of which 44 (46.8%) had vision worse than 6/60. After phaco cataract extraction, 42.6% of the subjects had post-operative visual of 6/18 and better after 1 day, and this increased after 7 days to 75.0% with good visual outcome and steadied after 31 days with 75.5% of the total subjects with visual acuity of 6/18 and better. There was a significant difference between the preoperative visual acuity and the post-operative visual acuity after 1 day, 7 days and 31 days (p<0.05). There was no significant effect of gender on the post-operative visual acuity (p>0.05). Chi-square test was done to assess the relationship between pre-existing ocular and systemic and the post-operative visual outcome of the subjects and it was found that there was no significant effect (p>0.05). The mean K1 and K2 values were 40.22 ± 11.58mm and 41.10 ± 11.84mm respectively. The mean corneal astigmatism (CA) was 0.88 ± 1.06 D. The mean Angle Chamber Depth (ACD), Lens Thickness (LT) and Axial Length (AL) were 3.05 ± 0.36 mm, 4.12 ± 2.07 mm and 23.61 ± 1.02 mm respectively. In conclusion, phaco cataract surgery significantly improves the visual acuity of visually impaired cataract subjects. Therefore more awareness should be created by eye care practitioners that cataract can effectively be managed and that the outcome is very favourable.