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Capsule complications in cataract surgery show steady decline, Swedish study reports
J Cataract Refract Surg. 2011;37(10):1762-1767
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The nationwide incidence of capsule complications in Sweden decreased in the last decade, partly because of diminished risk and improvements in surgical quality, a large study found.
The study included data on 602,553 cataract procedures collected prospectively from the Swedish National Cataract Register between 2002 and 2009. A subset analysis designed to validate the larger data set included 2,400 procedures performed between 2002 and 2006; data were available for 2,276 cases in the subset.
The larger analysis showed that phacoemulsification was performed in 594,744 cases (98.9%) and foldable IOLs were implanted in 596,817 cases (99.2%). The rate of cataract surgery in Sweden between 2000 and 2009 ranged from 8,000 surgeries to 9,000 surgeries per 1 million residents.
Data showed that capsule complications were reported in 12,574 cases (2.09%). The incidence of capsule complications declined from 2.8% in 2002 to 1.77% in 2006 and then leveled off at 1.89% in 2007, 1.68% in 2008 and 1.61% in 2009.
The subset analysis showed an incidence of posterior capsule complications of 2.72% between 2002 and 2006. The analysis showed some under-reporting of capsule complications; however, the discrepancy was insignificant, the authors said.