Foredragsholder / Presenter

Navn / Name: Birgitte Haargaard

Institution: Glostrup Hospital

Afdeling / Department: Øjenafdelingen

E-mail: birgitte@haargaard.dk

Medforfattere / Co-authors:

Navn / Name: Gøril Boberg-Ans

Institution: Glostrup Hospital

Afdeling / Department: Øjenafdelingen

Navn / Name: Vibeke Henning

Institution: Glostrup Hospital

Afdeling / Department: Øjenafdelingen

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical characteristics and surgical outcome of children undergoing surgery for congenital cataract.  

Material and Methods: Children with congenital cataract, who underwent surgery at an ophthalmological department in a Danish university hospital, were collected during a 15-year period.

Results: Congenital cataract surgery was performed in 102 eyes (62 children). The majority of eyes (75%) had both posterior capsulorhexis (PCC) and anterior vitrectomy performed; of these visual axis opacities that needed treatment developed in 3 eyes (4%), as opposed to 18 (69%) of the remaining eyes. Postoperative glaucoma occurred in 9 eyes (6 patients), and these eyes had congenital cataract surgery performed between 6 weeks and 24 weeks of age (median age at surgery 8 weeks). The age at surgery of all other eyes ranged from 5 weeks to 13 years (median age at surgery 27 months).

Twelve eyes of 10 patients had another ocular anomaly apart from cataract, primarily persistent foetal vasculature (7 eyes). In another 16 eyes (9 children) cataract was associated with systemic anomalies. The former group had a median Snellen visual acuity of 0.2 (range NLP to 1.0) at follow-up, the latter with systemic anomalies had a median Snellen visual acuity of 0.05 (range LP to 0.9). Among the 74 eyes with no other ocular or systemic anomalies, 11 were unilateral. The median postoperative Snellen visual acuity of the unilateral cases was 0.08 (range 0.02 to 0.5) and of the bilateral cases 0.6 (range LP to 1.2).

Conclusions: Posterior capsulorhexis and anterior vitrectomy are protective of later visual axis opacities. Among cases with no other ocular or systemic anomaly the postoperative visual acuity of unilateral cases was significantly poorer compared to bilateral ones.