Bilateral cataract surgery in adult and pediatric patients in a single session

Purpose: To evaluate the results of bilateral simultaneous cataract surgery in adult and pediatric patients under local or general anesthesia. Setting: Department of Ophthalmology, Inonu University, Turgut Ozal Medical Center, Malatya, Turkey. Methods: Eighty-two eyes of 41 patients were included in the study. Twelve of 17 pediatric patients with congenital cataract had bilateral simultaneous lensectomy, posterior capsulotomy, and anterior vitrectomy; 5 patients, aged 10 to 19 years, had bilateral extracapsular cataract extraction (ECCE) with posterior chamber intraocular lens (PC IOL) implantation. Forty-eight eyes of 24 adult patients had bilateral simultaneous ECCE with primary (43 eyes) or secondary (5 eyes) PC IOL implantation. Local anesthesia was administered to 20 adult patients by retrobulbar injection; the other cases were performed using general anesthesia. The procedures were treated as 2 separate surgeries in the same session; care was taken to ensure surgical asepsis. Results: No serious intraoperative complications occurred such as posterior capsule rupture, vitreous loss, endophthalmitis, and anesthesia-related problems. Of patients tested, 84.4% achieved a final best corrected visual acuity of 6/12 or better and 31.0%, of 6/6 or better. Conclusions: Simultaneous bilateral cataract surgery was not associated with an increased rate of complications, and visual results were good. If strict rules of surgical asepsis are followed, this may be a useful option in a variety of bilateral cases using general or local anesthesia. J Cataracr Refract Surg 2000; 26:1008-1011 (C) 2000 ASCRS and ESCRS.