Effect of micro-incision on corneal wavefront aberration and tear film in phacoemulsification

Abstract

AIM: To investigate the effect of endocapsular phacoemulsification cataract extraction and intraocular lens(IOL)implantation with a 1.8mm or 3.0mm clear corneal incision on total root mean square(RMS)value of the cornea, corneal astigmatism, spherical aberration, coma, trefoil and tear film.METHODS:In a prospective study, 156 age-related patients(196 eyes)were randomly distributed into two groups. 1.8mm-group comprised 94 eyes that had a silicone IOL inserted through a 1.8mm sutureless clear corneal incision, while, 3.0mm-group comprised 102 eyes through a 3.0mm clear corneal incision. Postoperatively, the changes in the total RMS value of the cornea, corneal astigmatism, spherical aberration, coma, trefoil and tear film at 1wk, 1 and 3mo were determined respectively.RESULTS: In both groups, postoperatively at 1wk,there were statistically significant differences(PPP>0.05)between two groups at 3mo postoperative.CONCLUSION:This study confirms that incision size has strong impact on the corneal higher-order aberrations, especially, 3.0mm incision caused significant differences in the total RMS value of cornea, corneal astigmatism, spherical aberration, coma, trefoil and tear film compared with 1.8mm micro-incision, therefore, micro-incision is very beneficial for clinical use in phacoemulsification.

Keywords

• phacoemulsification
• clear corneal incision
• wavefront aberration
• astigmatism
• tear film