Pediatric Cataract: How important is the age of intervention?

Abstract

Purpose: To study the effect of age of intervention on visual outcome following treatment of pediatric patients with cataract. Materials and Methods: This is a Prospective cohort study. We studied a consecutive series of pediatric patients with congenital, developing, or traumatic cataracts who underwent surgery between January, 1999 and April, 2012 at our center. Patient demographics, cataract type, presenting symptoms, surgical intervention, postoperative visual acuity, and follow-up refractive changes were recorded. Results: In total, 1305 eyes of 815 children were included: Unilateral cataracts were present in 786 (60.2%) eyes. There were 610 (46.7%) traumatic and 695 (53.3%) non-traumatic cases. Ages at surgery ranged from 1 to 215 months. Eyes were grouped by the age of surgical intervention performed: Group 1, 5 years, including 1019 (78.1%) eyes either by anterior or pars plana route ΁ IOL placement. The mean follow-up time was 117 days. Ultimately, 173 (13.3%) Group 1 and 442 (33.9%) Group 2 patients achieved a visual acuity better than 6/24 (P < 0.001). Age at intervention was significantly related (all P < 0.001) to visual outcome. Conclusions: Age of intervention affects visual outcome significantly (P < 0.001).