CATARACT
Reason
Symtoms
Treatment
Phaco and Phacoemulsification
Multifocal Lenses
CATARACT
This is the loss of transparency of the lens within the eye, which is transparent in healthy individuals. Vision will be impaired if the lens within the eye gets cloudy.
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Normal Lens:
Healthy and transparent intraocular lens. |
Lens with cataract:
Intraocular lens with cataract and lost transparency
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Causes:
The most frequent cause of cataract is advanced age. Cataract develops in patients over 50 years of age as a natural result ageing, and it takes years to reach a level to effect vision. Together with this, eye traumas, some diseases like diabetes, glaucoma (high intraocular pressure) and ocular diseases like uveitis, working under sun with no protection for long years, and use of cortisone are also among causes of cataract. Some infectious diseases suffered during pregnancy and some childhood metabolic diseases can also cause the development of cataract in infants and children.
Signs:
The most prominent finding of cataract is the reduced far vision and blurred vision. Patients generally express this condition as "looking from behind a frosted glass" or "looking outside from a dirty glass of a car". They start to have difficulties when reading the sings of buses until it comes nearer or signs or stores. Some patients start to complain from sunlight and headlights of vehicles more than they did in the past, and they feel dazzled in light. Some of the patients using reading glasses find out that their near vision gradually improves while their far vision gets worse. Double vision in one eye, fading of colors, and getting closer to yellow are also among the signs of cataract. Although these complaints can be seen in cataract, similar complaints can be seen in other ocular disorders. Patients with such complaints must see an ophthalmologist.
Treatment:
The only treatment of cataract is surgery. While treatment of cataract is not possible with any medicine or eyeglasses, spontaneous healing of the eye after the development of cataract is out of question, also. |
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Cataract surgery can be performed for all age groups; there is no need for waiting for the cataract to "mature", or for the vision to reduce extremely. Timing of the cataract surgery depends on the degree and type of the cataract, as well as the needs and demand of the patients. However, cataract will continue to develop with the delay of the surgery, and level of vision will get even worse. Together with this, risk of developing some eye disorders like increased intraocular pressure will also increase with the developing cataract. Operations on over-delayed and over-hardened cataract will last longer, risk of complications will increase, and healing period will also increase.
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In the cataract surgery, the cloudy intraocular lens will be replaced with an artificial intraocular lens. Today, cataract surgery is performed with two methods: method of classical extracapsular cataract extraction with classical sutures (PEKKE) and modern no-suture phakoemulsification (PHACO) method. There is one erroneous belief in our people: "The most successful and latest-technology cataract operations are performed with laser". This belief is wrong. Laser use in cataract operations is very limited. THIS TECHNOLOGY ERRONEOUSLY CALLED "LASER" BY OUR PEOPLE IS IN FACT THE PHACO METHOD. In this system, a certain type of sound wave called ultrasound in used, not laser. Our country comes together in technology with developed countries as regards eye disorders, and it is ahead most of them in some areas.
We also use in our hospital the PHACO method, which is the most modern technique. We apply multifocal and bifocal intraocular lenses that allow near and far vision together according to the wishes of our patients. Surgeries performed using the PHACO method in our hospital are mostly performed using drop anesthesia, that is, they are performed after ensuring anesthesia by using drops. Cataract operations can be performed also by ensuring the anesthesia using injections, which is called local anesthesia, and by general anesthesia in some special cases (panic attack, children etc.).
No sutures are put on the eye in PHACO method, and healing is very rapid after the operation. Patients are able to go back to their daily life in a few days following the surgery. Bed rest in the postoperative period is almost never required. Cataract operation with PHACO method rarely has any impact on the daily flow of life, provided that recommendations of the doctors are followed. In our hospital, we discharge our patients that we perform operations with PHACO method on the same day with the operation, and we call them for a control visit on the following day.
There is always the risk of some problems, minor or major, after every surgery. This goes also for eye operations. Infection, delay in healing, displacement of the lens implanted in the eye, displacement of the layer within the eyeball related to seeing (retinal detachment) or retinal edema, and, very rarely, loss of the eye are among these. Risk of the development of these complications is very small if there are no problems in the eye of the patient other than cataract and if they have no other accompanying diseases. Cataract surgery is rather safe, and results are rather good. The rapid developments of the recent years and the increasing use of PHACO surgery have increased the patient satisfaction.
Multifocal Intraocular Lenses
No matter how successful is the phacoemulsification (PHACO) operation performed on patients with cataract, the problem of near vision in postoperative period is inevitable in all the patients that a normal lens is implanted.
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