Cataract surgery is considered one of the safest and the most commonly performed procedures in the medical world. It is a surgery that replaces the cloudy lens of the eye with a clear artificial lens (intraocular lens IOL).
If both your eyes are affected by cataracts, the procedure is generally done on separate occasions. The reason for this is to allow the first eye to heal and the vision in the eye to stabilise before the procedure is done on the second eye.
The surgery is performed while the patient is awake. A mild sedative, as well as numbing gel and eye drops, will be administered to the patient to avoid any discomfort during the surgery.
Cataract surgery typically takes anywhere between 15 to 30 minutes. It is usually performed as a daycare surgery, where patients can go home on the same day as the procedure.
Phacoemulsification also known as ‘Phaco’ is the most common surgical procedure for cataract removal. Cataract removal with phacoemulsification takes less than half an hour and requires only local anaesthesia or topical anaesthesia.
The eye surgeon will make a small opening along the edge of the eye, next to the outer corner. A small ultrasonic probe is then inserted into the opening. The probe uses ultrasound waves to break up the cloudy lens into smaller fragments which are then removed.
Following the removal of the lens, an intraocular lens implant, commonly known as IOL, is implanted in the natural lens capsule through the small corneal incision.
Extracapsular cataract surgery is performed when the cataract is too dense and hard for phacoemulsification and when there is concomitant Fuchs’ dystrophy of the cornea.
When extracapsular surgery is performed, a laser incision is made on the cornea so that the hard cataract can be removed in one piece. Similar to phacoemulsification, an artificial lens (IOL) is implanted inside the same capsular bag. The wound is then closed using stitches.
