Munir Amjad Baig, M Ijaz Anwar, Inayat-ur Rahman.
Comparative analysis between small incision cataract surgery and extra capsular cataract extraction.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;12(1):228-31.

Background: People with cataracts living in developing countries, have limited facilities to cope with high demands of cataract surgery. These countries share the largest backlog of cataract surgeries, which are intumescent, mature and hyper-mature lenses (white cataracts). Aim : To compare both surgical procedures for the follow up recovery of cataract patients in high volume eye hospital setting. Methods: In a single masked randomised controlled study , 360 willing subjects , aged 40 –80 years, with operable cataract were evaluated to undergo either manual small incision cataract surgery (MSICS ) (group 1) or extra capsular cataract extraction ECCE (group 11) in Federal Government Services Hospital Islamabad during Jan. 2012- Dec 2012 by a single surgeon after approval from hospital Ethical committee. Intraoperative and postoperative complications were graded according to the recommendations of Oxford Cataract Treatment and Evaluation Team (OCTET A p<0.05 was considered statistically significant . Results: Among 360 first operated eyes, 184 patients of equal gender underwent MSICS while 176 patients had ECCE with PCIOL implantation. Mean age at surger was 64 years with male predominance of 51.1%. The complications based on OCTET definitions showed that 69(19.1%) patients had Grade I, 15(4.1%) had Grade II and 4(1.1%) had Grade III complications. Both groups achieved good visual results with minimal complications but group I had better Initial visual recovery. The most common first post-operative day complication was mild iridocyclitis. The induced astigmatism was less in MSICS group compared to ECCE group at first day but after six weeks no much difference was found. In both groups , corneas were clear after three weeks. At 6 month follow-up, 22(12.5%) patients in group 1 and 27(14.6%) patients in group 11 had Elschnigs Pearls. Conclusion: A huge number of cataract patients are waiting for treatment in the developing world. Both MSICS and ECCE with intra ocular lens implantation can deal with this situation in our country.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com