Comparison Of Hospital Versus Rural Eye Camp Based Pediatric Cataract Surgery

1. Jaspreet Sukhija¹
2. Jagat Ram¹
3. Babu Thapa²
4. Virendra Arya³

¹Advanced Eye Centre ,PGIMER, Chandigarh,India
²Department of Pediatric Gastroentrology, PGIMER, Chandigarh,India
³Department of Anaesthesia,PGIMER, Chandigarh, India

Purpose: To evaluate the results of pediatric cataract surgery with intraocular lens (IOL) implantation in an eye camp setting and tertiary care centre.

Methods: Children in the age group of 5-16 years with visually significant cataract underwent phacoaspiration with IOL implantation at an eye camp setting and tertiary care centre. All children were operated using contemporary microsurgical techniques and implanted with all polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) IOLs. Major postoperative complications were managed at a tertiary care center.

Results: 59 children in the eye camp and 48 children in the tertiary care centre with pediatric cataract fulfilled the inclusion criteria. 32/59 (54.23%) eyes in the eye camp and 30/48(62.5%) eyes in the hospital achieved 20/40 or more best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) after surgery. Overall, 36(61%) eyes in eye camp compared to 22(45.83%) in hospital required Nd: YAG laser capsulotomy or a parsplana membranectomy. Most striking feature was loss to follow up, in the eye camp children lost to follow up were 20% at one year, 49% at two year, 62% at 3 year and 67% at 4years compared to 12.5%, 21%, 27% and 33% in the hospital surgery respectively (p<0.05).

Conclusions: Initial results of camp and hospital based pediatric cataract surgery were similar. However major drawback of camp based surgery was loss to follow up of children eventually affecting management of amblyopia and postoperative complications.