Visual acuity after cataract surgery in patients with AMD A new study prublished in the current edition of the journal Ophthalmologe finds that patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) can experience significant visual improvement after undergoing cataract surgery.

Surgeons are often reluctant to perform cataract surgery on patients with macular degeneration because of concerns over low potential for good vision after surgery. To investigate the veracity of such concerns, researchers performed a retrospective case-control study of all patients with AMD who had undergone cataract surgery at their facility from January 2000 to February 2006.

The study analyzed the visual acuity of 1,152 eyes of 696 patients with AMD that had cataract surgery, and compared them to a control goup of 334 eyes of 202 patients with AMD that did not undergo cataract surgery.

One year after cataract surgery, 62.1% of eyes had visual acuity was at least two logMAR units better than before surgery, and 26.7% of eye had at least four logMAR units improvement. Deterioration of visual acuity of more than four logMAR units occurred in 1.3% of operated eyes and 1.5% of control eyes. While not entirely accurate, each logMAR unit is approximately equivalent to a row of letters on a standard Snellen visual acuity chart.

The authors conclude that cataract surgery can markedly improve visual acuity in patients with AMD.

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Ophthalmologe. 2008 May 18. [Epub ahead of print]