Hippokratia 1997, 1(4):200-205
P. Traianidis, G. Sakkias, S Avramides
Abstract
Objective: To assess prospectively the reduction of post operative astigmatism with the frown incision (chord length 5-5.5 mm) which is mostly located in the astigmatism neutral area. Study design: Prospective study of surgical technique and postoperative results concerning induced astigmatism with a minimum follow-up time of 4 months, maximum of 11 months and a mean 5,46 months. Setting: Department of Ophthalmology Hippokratio Thessaloniki General Hospital, Thessaloniki Greece. Patients: 238 patients with relatively soft cataracts were randomly assigned in two groups (155 patients sutured group, 83 patients unsutured group) and underwent extracapsular cataract extraction with the frown incision technique from March 1994 to September 1994. Main outcome measures: Early and late postoperative astigmatism. Results: The mean induced astigmatic change in dioptres was: 0.47, 0.35, 0.27, 0.22 (1st day, 10th day, 1st month, 3rd month) in the sutured group, whereas the corresponding figures in the unsutured group were: 0.73 (p < 0.01), 0.54 (p < 0.01), 0.42 (p < 0.05), 0.35 (p < 0.05) respectively. Conclusions: The small scleral (5-5.5 mm) frown incision is easy to perform, causes a significant reduction of early and late postoperative astigmatism and the sutured technique gives better results than the unsutured one.