[Sutureless corneal cataract surgery. Limbal release incisions for correcting astigmatism].

BACKGROUND

To prevent surgically induced astigmatism following clear corneal cataract surgery.

PATIENTS AND

METHODS

Limbal relaxing incisions of 6 or 8 mm length respectively and 0.5 mm depth were performed in 52 patients with spheric cornea or astigmatism with the rule of 0.8 +/- 0.3 dpt after temporal corneal cataract incision. The same amount of patients, operated on with the same surgical procedure except keratotomies, served as control.

RESULTS

After 6 months the with-the-wound-change (WTW) in the LRI axis using the Hollady method was -0.08 +/- 0.5 dpt in the spheric cases with limbal keratotomy and +0.5 +/- 0.7 dpt in the control cases. The patients with preoperative astigmatism with the rule showed a WTW in the LRI axis of -0.09 +/- 0.5 dpt in the keratotomy cases and +0.39 +/- 0.7 dpt in the corresponding control patients.

CONCLUSION

Limbal relaxing incision is a reliable and safe procedure to reduce postoperative astigmatism after cataract surgery.