Sunil Kumar1, Aanchal Priya2, Shilpi Dubey3, Seema Singh4
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.
