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Axial length changes significantly after pediatric cataract surgery
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Axial length changes after cataract surgery in children, with eyes that have shorter lengths preoperatively showing a greater rate of postop axial growth compared with the fellow eye, a retrospective study showed.
Rupal H. Trivedi, MD, MSCR, and M. Edward Wilson Jr., MD, investigated the changes in interocular axial length differences after IOL insertion in 47 eyes of children treated at a mean age of 2.2 years. The children were divided into three groups based on their preoperative differences in axial lengths: less than –0.2 mm (group 1); from –0.2 mm to 0.2 mm (group 2); and greater than 0.2 mm (group 3), according to the study.
The researchers found significant differences between the three groups in both the change in interocular axial length difference and the overall rate of axial length growth.
The change in axial length difference averaged 0.3 mm among children in group 1, 0.2 mm among children in group 2 and –0.4 mm among children in group 3 (P = .02). The rate of growth averaged 3.7 mm for group 1, 2.4 mm for group 2 and 2.5 mm for group 3 (P = .03), according to the study.
"These growth rates resulted in a postoperative trend of intraocular axial length difference toward zero," the authors reported.
The study is published in the June issue of Journal of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus.