Same-day cataract surgery on both eyes can be safe, effective and practical, according to a pair of new studies.
Cataract surgery typically is performed on one eye then the other, with procedures scheduled weeks or months apart.
But getting surgery done on both eyes at once works just as well, and doesn’t appear to interfere with patients’ ability to manage on their own at home afterward, researchers are to report this weekend at a meeting of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons in Copenhagen.
“For patients, these findings are encouraging,” researcher Dr. Gabriele Gallo Afflitto, an ophthalmologist with Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in the U.K., said in a news release.
“They suggest that having cataract surgery performed in both eyes on the same day, particularly when combined with multifocal lens implantation, can deliver excellent vision, reduce dependence on glasses and allow faster recovery,” he said.
Cataract surgery is needed when the lens of a person’s eye becomes cloudy, causing blurry vision and loss of sight. Cataracts often occur in both eyes.
Cataract surgery involves replacing the clouded lens with an artificial one that can either be single-focused or multi-focused, just like an eyeglass lens.
It’s one of the most common surgeries in the U.S., with more than 3 million performed each year, the Cleveland Clinic says. About half of all people who live into their 90s will need cataract surgery.
In Afflitto’s study, researchers reviewed data from more than 5,800 patients with a total 11,620 eye procedures. All patients had their surgeries performed at Moorfields Private Eye Hospital in the UK.
They found that 85% of patients receiving multifocal lenses and 70% receiving single-focus lenses in both eyes on the same day achieved 20/20 vision or better.