English

Abstract

BACKGROUND Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of hereditary disorders characterised by difficulty of seeing at night, bony spicule pigmentation in mid retinal periphery, progressive visual field loss and abnormal electroretinogram (ERG) responses. Cataract surgery in patients with retinitis pigmentosa is associated with poor visual outcome with higher incidence of intraoperative and postoperative complications. This study was done to find the visual and surgical outcome of phacoemulsification and intraocular lens (IOL) implantation in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. METHODS This was a retrospective, non-comparative, observational study done at Regional Institute of Ophthalmology, RIMS Ranchi, India. Consecutive patients of retinitis pigmentosa who underwent phacoemulsification and IOL implantation between July 2015 to December 2019 were retrospectively analysed. Intraoperative and postoperative complications, visual and refractive outcomes were analysed. RESULTS Fifty six eyes of 48 patients (29 male, 19 female) with mean age 46.62 ± 8.45 years were included in study. Mean follow up was 17.92 ± 10.62 months. The types of cataract were posterior subcapsular in 30.35 %, cortical in 14.2 %, mixed in 51.8 % and nuclear sclerosis in 3.5 % of eyes. Intraoperative posterior capsular rent (PCR) was noted in 2 eyes (3.57 %) and zonular dehiscence in 3 eyes (35.35 %). Preoperative mean log minimum angle of resolution best corrected visual acuity (MARBCVA) was 1.45 ± 0.49 which improved to 1.24 ± 0.28 postoperatively at 4 weeks (P-value < 0.05). Postoperatively, vision improved in 46 (82.14 %) eyes, unchanged in 7 (12.5 %) eyes and worsened in 3 (5.35 %) eyes. Postoperative cystoid macular oedema (CME) was noted in 5 eyes (9.07 %). Significant posterior capsular opacification (PCO) was noted in 15 eyes (26.78 %) and anterior capsular phimosis was noted in 3 eyes (5.35 %). CONCLUSIONS Cataract surgery improves vision in most of the patients with retinitis pigmentosa. The incidence of PCR, zonular dehiscence, CME, PCO and anterior capsular phimosis is higher in these patients. KEYWORDS Retinitis Pigmentosa, Cataract, Capsular Phimosis