Purpose:
To establish the influence of cataract surgery on the capacity to recover from a short exposure to glare and on contrast sensitivity determined with and without glare.
Methods:
The study population was comprised of 1103 subjects (132 women, 971 men) aged 50 years or older (mean age 68 ± 6 years, range 50–90 years) divided into two groups according to whether they had undergone cataract surgery (n=121 or 11.03%; mean age 71 years) or had not been operated on (n=982 or 89%; mean age 67 years). Recovery times after exposure to a glare source for 10 s, and photopic and mesopic visual acuity were measured using an Ergovisión® instrument (Essilor). Contrast Sensitivity (CS) with and without glare was determined using the CGT 1000 (6 stimulus sizes –6.3 to 0.7 degrees; 12 levels of contrast –0.01 to 0.45; 8 peripheral glare sources) at photopic luminance levels. In each subject, a complete anamnesis was undertaken.
Results:
The mean photostress recovery time for the entire population was 69 ±42 s (range 6 – 258 s). Recovery times for the C1 (cataract operated subjects) and C2 (non cataract operated subjects) groups were 73 ±35 s and 68 ±41 s, respectively (P=0.26). The visual acuity loss recorded for the drop in luminance level was 0.5 ±0.2 and was unaffected by cataract surgery. The table shows the contrast sensitivity values obtained with and without glare for C1 and C2.
Conclusions:
In our subjects, cataract surgery had no effects on the photostress recovery time, the visual acuity loss produced by a drop in luminance, or on disability glare. Cataract surgery did, however, show a significant negative effect on contrast sensitivity with glare for all stimulus sizes and without glare for intermediate target sizes.
Keywords: cataract • temporal vision • contrast sensitivity