Visual function of eyes with waterclefts

Abstract

Purpose : To examine the impact of waterclefts (WC) on visual function.

Methods : We studied 42 eyes of 30 patients (age 69.4±7.5 yrs) with WC cataract and no other eye disease among patients of Kanazawa Medical University Hospital, October 2013 through July 2015. One examiner classified cataracts by KMU classification as WC central type (any WC in the central 3-mm diameter) and WC peripheral type (WC outside the 3-mm diameter) and compared these eyes with 42 transparent lens eyes of participants of Monzen Eye Study in 2013 as controls (age 57.2±8.7 yrs). We measured best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), 25％ contrast visual acuity (CVA) under 4 illumination conditions (DAY, DAY+G, EVE, EVE+G), total higher order aberration (tHOA) in 4 mm and 6mm entrance pupils with KR-9000W (TOPCON),and forward light scattering (FLS) with C-Quant (OCULUS), back light scattering (BLS) as peak height of anterior embryonal nucleus with EAS-1000 (NIDEK).

Results : BCVA in WC eyes (0.13±0.22logMAR) was significantly lower than in control eyes (-0.13±0.07logMAR) (p<0.001). CVA in WC eyes was significantly lower than in control eyes under the 4 illumination conditions (p<0.001), and CVA in WC central type eyes was significantly lower than in WC peripheral type. FLS in WC eyes was significantly higher than in control eyes, and significantly higher in WC central than in WC peripheral type. tHOA was significantly increased in WC eyes (p<0.05) with that in WC central significantly greater than that in WC peripheral type eyes (p<0.05). There was no difference in BLS among three groups. In multiple regression analysis of WC eyes, BCVA showed significant correlations with tHOA, FLS, BLS (r=0.4658, p<0.05) showing the most significant correlation with tHOA.

Conclusions : Waterclefts have a significant impact on visual function due to increase in tHOA, FLS and BLS, especially by increasing tHOA.

This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.