Conjunctival haemorrhage

A single drop of brimonidine 0.15% instilled into the eye preoperatively significantly decreased the severity of subconjunctival haemorrhage after femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery (FLACS), reported Eric S Tam, MD. “Subconjunctival haemorrhage is a common side effect following FLACS. Preoperative use of brimonidine to reduce conjunctival haemorrhage has been studied for various ophthalmic procedures. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate its effect following FLACS,” said Dr Tam, University Of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. The efficacy of brimonidine to reduce subconjunctival haemorrhage after suction ring application was investigated in a prospective, masked, randomized study that included all FLACS cases completed by a single surgeon between June and August 2019. All eyes received the usual preoperative eye drops with or without a drop of brimonidine 0.15% and underwent surgery using the same femtosecond laser and phacoemulsification platforms. Images taken preoperatively and 15 minutes after surgery using the Oculus Keratograph M5 were analysed to generate a bulbar redness score. After applying stringent exclusion criteria to ensure that the pairs of preoperative and postoperative images were of comparable quality for analysis, 25 brimonidine-treated eyes and 37 control eyes were eligible for data analysis. Mean age, gender characteristics, and underlying medical conditions were similar in the two groups. Mean preoperative bulbar redness score and mean postoperative bulbar redness score did not differ significantly between groups. Postoperatively, however, the mean bulbar redness score decreased in the brimonidine group while it increased in the control group, and the difference between groups for mean change in bulbar redness score was statistically significant.

Tags: conjunctival haemorrhage, ASCRS 2020