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ESCRS preliminary data: No difference in femto, phaco quality outcomes
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LONDON — Quality outcomes measured in the ESCRS FLACS EUREQUO study show no difference between femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery and manual cataract surgery, according to preliminary data presented here.
Two different patient populations emerged from the study, Peter Barry, MD, told colleagues at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons Congress; regardless, no between-group differences in outcomes were seen.
Peter Barry
“Our [femtosecond] patients — the 2,022 compared to the [nearly 5,000] in the [phacoemulsification] group — were younger, had better preoperative visual acuity, more preoperative corneal surgery and a greater utilization of multifocal and toric IOLs,” Barry said. “They had somewhat more postoperative complications, but not much. They had less postoperative astigmatism, but not a lot, and somewhat less surgically induced astigmatism.”
There was a striking difference in the IOLs used, according to Barry, with hydrophilic acrylic lenses being used in 52.8% of femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery cases and only 19% being used in the manual cataract surgery cases. Hydrophobic acrylic lenses were used in 46.1% of the femtosecond patients and in 80.7% of the phacoemulsification cases.
“But there was an enormous difference in the so-called premium IOLs,” he said, with multifocal IOLs implanted in 39.6% of patients in the femtosecond group and 0.3% in the phacoemulsification group. Toric IOLs were implanted in 6.5% and accommodative IOLs were implanted in 0.6% of femtosecond patients, compared with 0.2% and 0%, respectively, in phacoemulsification patients.
The study was limited in that circularity of capsulorrhexis, centration of capsulorrhexis, femtosecond platform, endothelial cell loss, effective lens position or higher-order aberrations were not included. These measurements were not included in the study because they had no comparison in the EUREQUO database, the repository where data were collected for the study, Barry said.
The benchmarks measured in EUREQUO for quality outcomes included visual acuity, biometry prediction error, surgically induced astigmatism, torn posterior capsule, vitreous loss and dropped nucleus.
Disclosure: Barry has no relevant financial disclosures.