PURPOSE: To study the long-term behavior of induced astigmatism in a series of patients who underwent extracapsular extraction in which a superoposterior limbal incision sutured with interrupted 10-0 mononylon sutures was performed. METHODS: 38 eyes of 35 patients were studied, 21 females and 17 males, with ages varying from 47 to 85 year (average = 70.17 year). All cases were operated by the same surgeon. The postoperative follow-up ranged from 15 to 33 months (average = 22.07 months). None of the cases had any of the sutures sectioned or removed. All patients recovered a corrected visual acuity equal or superior to 0.5. To calculate the induced astigmatism in each case, the preoperative and postoperative keratometric readings were considered and a program developed by Jaffe was used. RESULTS: The induced astigmatism ranged from 0.13 diopters (D) to 2.74D (average = 1.19D). Regarding the axis, there was induction of with-the-rule astigmatism in the majority of cases (60.52%). A significant shift in the dioptric power of the induced astigmatism was observed when the preoperative keratometric readings were compared with the keratometric readings recorded at the second postoperative week, between the first and the third postoperative months, between the third and the sixth postoperative months and after the twelfth postoperative month. CONCLUSION: When mononylon 10-0 is used as suture material in extracapsular extraction, the initially observed values of with-the-rule induced astigmatism tend to decrease during the post operative period.
Astigmatism; Cataract extraction; Ophthalmologic surgical procedures; suture techniques; Follow-up studies; Adult
