Differing HOAs in cataract patients

Different types of early lenticular opacities in cataract patients induce different wavefront aberration profiles, according to a study published in the August issue of the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.

Karolinne Maia Rocha and colleagues from the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, looked at 105 eyes of 65 patients with bilateral cataract, classified according to the Lens Opacities Classification System III (LOCS III). All eyes underwent a complete ophthalmic examination, including corneal topography and wavefront analysis. Higher order aberrations were compared between the nuclear, cortical and posterior subcapsular groups for statistical significance.

The researchers found that 28 eyes (23.3%) had predominantly nuclear opacification and 13 (10.83%) had mainly cortical opacification. Sixty-four eyes had a mixed pattern of LOCS III classification, which hindered the establishment of a correlation between the aberrometry and cataract type.

In eyes with nuclear opacification, the mean spherical aberration with a 6 mm pupil was 0.45±0.17 µm and the mean coma was 0.29±0.13 µm. In eyes with predominantly cortical cataract, mean spherical aberration was 0.12±0.10 µm and the mean coma was 0.49±0.23 µm. The cortical cataract group had significantly higher coma than any other group (p<0.001) and the nuclear cataract group had significantly higher spherical aberrations than the other groups (p<0.001).

It was concluded that different types of early lenticular opacities induce different wavefront aberration profiles.