Impact of lens thickness on complications of hypermature cataract surgery: A prospective study

Purpose. - To assess the correlation between lens thickness (LT) measured by ultrasonography and duration of surgery as well as complications. Setting. - The study was conducted in a hospital in the Parisian suburb of Bobigny, France. Design. - A prospective and monocentric study was conducted. All patients undergoing surgery for hypermature cataract between January 2013 and March 2014 were included. Methods. - Morphological features, including LT, axial length, anterior chamber depth and vitreous length were assessed using A-scan ultrasonography. The other parameters assessed were the duration of surgery, occurrence of complications during surgery, visual acuity (VA) and corneal edema score one week after surgery. Results. - Thirty eyes of 29 patients were included. Mean LT was 4.11 +/- 0.64 mm (median: 3.89 mm). Mean surgery duration was 24.2 +/- 8.7 min. Three patients experienced complications during surgery: 2 capsular breaks and 1 posterior lens dislocation. At one week, the mean decimal VA was 0.49 +/- 0.34 and the mean corneal edema score was 0.76 +/- 1.09. The Pearson correlation coefficient was r = 0.27 (P > 0.05) between LT and surgery duration while it was r = 0.53 (P=0.01) between VA and LT. No correlation was found for the other parameters studied. Discussion. - In this study, the linear correlation between LT and the surgery duration was low. The visual recovery at day 7 appeared inversely correlated with the LT. Conclusions. - LT did not seem to be a marker for longer surgery duration but appeared related to the visual recovery at one week. (C) 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.