VISUAL OUTCOME OF TRAUMATIC CATARACT: ONE YEAR REVIEW

BACKGROUND: Traumatic cataract is a very common ocular emergency encountered byophthalmologists worldwide. There is a long list of co-morbidities associated with traumatic cataract.Visual outcome is unpredictable after surgical management of the traumatic cataract.OBJECTIVES: To study the presentation and surgical outcome of traumatic cataract following openand closed globe injury.MATERIAL & METHODS: It is a prospective interventional case series. The study was carried out atDepartment of Ophthalmology, Saidu Group of Teaching Hospitals, Swat from 1st July 2015 to 30th June2016 on the patients with traumatic cataract.RESULTS: In this study we evaluated 40 eyes of 40 patients who presented with traumatic cataract andwere admitted to our unit during the study period. There were 72.5% male and 27.5% female. Stick andwooden splinter was the most common traumatic agent responsible for traumatic cataract in 40%followed by stone in 22.5% cases. Preoperative visual acuity was perception of light (PL) to handmovements (HM) in 45%, counting fingers to 6/60 in 50% patients. 50% patients had postoperativevisual acuity of less than 6/60, while 50% had visual acuity of 6/60 and above. Extracapsular cataractextraction (ECCE) with intraocular lens (IOL) was performed in 55% cases, while ECCE without IOLwas done in 7.5% cases. The most common co-morbidity was corneal scar in 12.5%, 27.5% patients hadcombined co-morbidities while 25% had no co-morbidity.CONCLUSION: Majority of the patients with traumatic cataract were young males. Postoperativevisual acuity was better in those cases which were not associated with other co-morbidities. Surgicalintervention was required in all cases and conventional ECCE with IOL implantation was the mostcommonly adopted surgical procedure. Trauma with stick and wooden splinter was the most commoncause of traumatic cataract.KEY WORDS: Traumatic cataract, Closed globe injury (CGI), Open globe injury (OGI), visual acuity(VA).