Long-term Effects of Cataract Surgery on Tear Film Parameters

Purpose: To examine the differences in tear film parameters more than 3 months postsurgery in eyes with cataract surgery (surgical eyes) versus eyes without cataract surgery (nonsurgical eyes).

Methods: 29 patients were seen at the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) who had cataract surgery by phacoemulsification in one eye more than 3 months prior to the study date and had no history of surgical intervention in their fellow eye. Tear film parameters were measured in both eyes and compared using McNemar tests for dichotomous variables and paired and single sample t-tests for continuous variables.

Results: Mean patient age was 73 (standard deviation (SD): 11); 26 patients (90%) identified themselves as White and 7 (24%) as Hispanic. The mean number of days between surgery and this study was 952 (SD: 1109). There were no statistical differences between the surgical eye and the nonsurgical eye with respect to any of the measured tear film parameters. Confidence intervals around these differences were narrow enough to exclude a substantial effect of cataract surgery. The elapsed time between cataract surgery and measurement of the tear parameters did not appear to affect the difference in parameters between the two eyes.

Conclusion: We found that eyes that had cataract surgery more than 3 months prior to testing had no differences in their tear film parameters compared to eyes without a history of surgery.