What is Cataract surgery?
Cataract surgery is among the most highly perfected, safe, and successful procedures in all of medicine. Over one million cataract operations are performed in this country every year. The surgery is most often performed with monitored anesthetic care with appropriate sedation given as necessary. It is painless and takes less than half an hour for completion. A sophisticated surgical technique, called phacoemulsification, is used to remove the cataract through a small incision. An intraocular lens is then permanently implanted into the eye. Fine-tuning the patients vision is performed with the appropriate choice of intraocular lens implant power. Usually, the incision is so small that it is able to heal rapidly, leaving no visible scar and eliminating the need for sutures.
Cataract surgery is most often performed under local anesthesia on an outpatient basis. The clouded lens is either removed intact through a 10-12 mm incision or is dissolved using a high frequency ultrasound and a much smaller incision, approximately 3 mm. An artificial lens is implanted in both cases. The surgery continues to improve with such recent developments as no-stitch surgery, topical anesthesia, surgical correction of astigmatism and new lens designs. It takes a few months for the eye to heal completely, but the patient is able to return to normal activity soon after surgery.
