INFLUENCE OF POSTOPERATIVE ASTIGMATISM ON UNCORRECTED NEAR VISUAL ACUITY IN PSEUDOPHAKIA

Aims: The impact of astigmatism on near visual acuity in pseudophakia patients who underwent manual small incision cataract surgery. Settings and Design: Randomized, cross-sectional, hospital-based observational study Methods and Material: 200 eyes of 200 pseudophakic patients with BCVA for distance 6/9 or better was considered. UCNV was recorded at 33 cms by giving only spherical correction used in distance correction without cylindrical correction. Residual astigmatism was noted , near visual acuity pertaining to astigmatism was compared and tabulated. PCIOL in the bag or sulcus was also noted with dilated pupil on slit lamp examination . Results:67% were ATR astigmatism 11% were WTR astigmatism, 11% had oblique astigmatism and 12% of them had no astigmatism. In ATR group, 30%, 26%, 15% of patients were able to read N12, N10, N8 vision respectively. In WTR group, 33%, 14%, 19% of patients read N8, N10,N12 respectively. 67% eyes belonged to cylindrical power range of -1.50 D to -0.50 D, 50% of them in this range read N8,N10. 138 patients had in the bag IOL, 62 of them had IOL in sulcus. Among those patients with in the bag IOL, 88 were in range of -0.50 to -1.50, out of which 19 had N8, 25 had N10, patients with IOL in sulcus, 31 were in range of -0.50 to -1.50, out of which 5 had N8, 10 had N10. Conclusions:Near acuity was relatively poor without astigmatism, and it improved with up to 0.5 to 1.5 D of simple myopic astigmatism. Near acuity deteriorated with hyperopic astigmatism for different meridians. Nearly 50% could read N8, N10 with only distance vision spherical correction.ATR astigmatism produced significantly better reading performance than WTR astigmatism. In the bag IOL had better near visual outcome as compared with in the sulcus IOL.