Residents’ Cataract Surgeries- A Tertiary Center Experience

To analyse cataract surgeries done by residents at a tertiary care center in New Delhi, India.

Tertiary centre in New Delhi, India. Cataract surgeries done under community ophthalmology department analysed. Cataract is leading cause of blindness but complicated cataract surgeries is also an important cause of visual impairment. Resident training should focus on quality of surgery also.

Retrospective, observational, single center study. All patients operated under community ophthalmology programme at a tertiary care center in New Delhi from January 2018 to August 2022 were analysed. Patients were screened from outpatient department as well as outreach department of community ophthalmology department. All cases were performed by trainee residents after receiving mandatory training and certification in surgical skills lab. All the trainee surgiers were guided by a senior resident. All the surgeries were performed free of cost including post operative medications. Final post operative analysis was done at six weeks.

A total of 4185 patients were operated in this period aged 59.80 ± 10.41 years, 2196 female and 1989 male. In 3773 patients (90.2%) phacoemulsification was done, 363 eyes underwent extracapsular cataract extraction. 28 eyes had intracapsular cataract extraction, small incision cataract surgery was performed in 14 patients and scleral fixated IOL was done in 7 aphakic eyes. 3545 patients received foldable IOL in bag (84.7%), 577 patients received IOL in sulcus and 63 patients were left aphakic. 98.5% patients were discharged with IOL in the eye. 3233 patients (77.3%) had post operative best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) ≥ 20/40 and 91.4% ≥ 20/60. In 97.5% vision improved post surgery. 170 patients (4%) had BCVA < 20/200.

77.3% patients had BCVA ≥ 20/40 and 91.4% had BCVA ≥ 20/60 post operatively, and only 4% had BCVA < 20/200 . Cataract is the leading cause of blindness in the country but unfortunately cataract related complications also contribute significantly to visual impairment. Analysis of residents’ surgeries is important aspect of tackling this double headed problem. We recommend that every complicated resident’s case should be analysed for betterment of outcomes. Being a retrospective study, some data was lacking about causes of poor post operative vision.