Purpose: To assess the clinical relevance of routine preoperative spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) for identifying macular pathologies in patients scheduled for cataract surgery.
Setting: Shaare-Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
Design: Retrospective case series.
Methods: Consecutive patients, 50 years of age and older, scheduled for standard cataract extraction surgery were enrolled from November 2017 to January 2018. All study patients underwent routine SD-OCT scanning before cataract surgery. The scans were reviewed by a retinal specialist for macular pathology and compared with preoperative fundus biomicroscopic examination findings. The incidence of macular pathologies and changes in patient management as a result of the macular SD-OCT findings were assessed.
Results: Four hundred fifty-three eyes of 453 patients were enrolled in the study; 42 eyes (9.2%) were excluded because of noninterpretable SD-OCT scans attributable to advanced cataract, leaving scans of 411 eyes of 411 patients for study inclusion. Macular pathologies were detected by SD-OCT in 167 eyes (40.6%), including age-related macular degeneration (50%), epiretinal membrane (28.3%), and cystoid macular edema (12.8%). Overall, the management of 107 patients (26.0%) was modified because of macular SD-OCT findings, which were either missed (22.8%) or underestimated (3.2%) by the fundus biomicroscopic examination. Changes in preoperative patient management included altering patient consultation regarding presbyopia correction solutions (73 eyes [17.8%]) and referral to a retinal specialist for consultation (34 eyes [8.3%]).
Conclusions: Routine macular SD-OCT scans for cataract surgery candidates helped to identify macular pathologies that might be missed or underestimated by standard fundus biomicroscopic examination. The added information could improve patient management.
Copyright © 2020 Published by Wolters Kluwer on behalf of ASCRS and ESCRS.