Abstract
Purpose::
Determine if there is a higher incidence of vitreous loss and longer length of cases doing the technically more difficult topical anesthesia cases vs retrobulbar cases in supervised resident cataract surgery.
Methods::
559 consecutive cases from 6-17-03 to 6-27-06 at the VAMC Detroit, Michigan were retrospectively reviewed. These included 537 males, 22 females, ages ranging from 39 years to 93 years with average age 69 years. 231 were done retrobulbar/peribulbar and 328 by topical anesthesia.
Results::
Vitreous loss occurred in 54 of 328 (16.5%) topical cases and in 44 of 231 (19%) retrobulbar cases. Length of cases were on average 48 minutes (range from 18 minutes to 165 minutes) for retrobulbar and 41 minutes (range from 16 minutes to 109 minutes) for topical block. Length of cases with vitreous loss by retrobulbar block were on average 82 minutes, by topical block 70 minutes.
Conclusions::
Topical anesthesia did not result in a higher incidence of vitreous loss compared to retrobulbar cases (16.5% topical compared to 19% retrobulbar) and length of cases were comparable between the two types of blocks; 41 minutes topical compared to 48 minutes retrobulbar, both without vitreous loss, and 70 minutes topical vs 82 minutes retrobulbar with vitreous loss.
Keywords: cataract • treatment outcomes of cataract surgery