A study published today in the August edition of the Journal of Cataract & Refractive
Surgery reports that wavefront technology, a new way of measuring how vision
is distorted by irregularities in the eye, offers a widely accepted means for
corroborating cataract patients' vision complaints, which may lead to earlier
treatment with attendant enhanced patient safety and less loss of quality of
life.
The study, Higher-Order Aberrations of Lenticular Opacities, by N. Sachdev,
S. Ormonde, T. Sherwin, and C. McGhee, found that different types of cataracts
produced identifiable and repeatable results using wavefront diagnostic
equipment. These results could explain the significant visual symptoms in
patients with early cataracts that the most commonly used vision test does not
demonstrate. The study was performed at the Departments of Ophthalmology at the
University of Auckland
and the Auckland Public
Hospital in New Zealand.
The significance of this study is that it shows wavefront testing can be used
to accurately measure the visual errors that show up as glare and other problems
that cataract patients experience. This will give insurance companies a reliable
and widely accepted means of testing for the effects of cataracts on patients'
vision and for making reliable determinations of the medical need for a cataract
operation. Its impact on patient welfare is that it can reduce the number of
patients who are unable to receive early treatment because alternative testing
means are inadequate or not widely accepted.
Cataracts are the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide, and
cataract surgery is among the most common surgical procedures in people over 65
years of age in the United States. Last year, 2,775,000 procedures were
performed in the U.S. (one procedure = one eye). A cataract is the clouding of
the normally clear, natural crystalline lens of the eye. As cataracts increase
in size and density, they reduce the amount of light passing through the lens,
which results in blindness if not treated. In the U.S., Medicare, the federal
government's health insurance program for the elderly, paid for 1.733 million
procedures in 2002, according to the most recent data. Modern cataract treatment
surgically removes the damaged lens and replaces it with an artificial one.
Because cataracts tend to grow gradually, one of the most important treatment
issues is determining when they degrade vision to the point that the patient is
at an increased risk of falls or accidents, or that their quality of life has
been significantly undermined. (An August 2002, study reported in the Journal of
the American Medical Association found that cataract patients who had surgery to
treat the condition had 50 percent fewer car accidents than those patients who
did not.)