Natural eye lens is a crystalline substance to produce a clear passage for light. Cataract is opacity within the clear lens of the eye and is the dominant cause of socio-medical problem i.e., blindness worldwide. The only available treatment of cataract is surgery. However, insufficient surgical facilities in poor and developing countries and post-operative complications inspire researchers to find out other modes of treatment for cataract. In this review, an attempt has been made to appraise various etiological factors of cataract to make their perception clear to build up counterpart treatment. Present study is an assortment of various available literatures and electronic information in view of cataract etiopathogenesis. Various risk factors have been identified in development of cataracts. They can be classified in to genetic factors, ageing (systemic diseases, nutritional and trace metals deficiencies, smoking, oxidative stress etc.), traumatic, complicated (inflammatory and degenerative diseases of eye), metabolic (diabetes, galactosemia etc.), toxic substances including drugs abuses, alcohol etc., radiation (ultraviolet, electromagnetic waves etc.) are implicated as significant risk factors in the development of cataract.

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An electrolyte cathode discharge atomic emission spectrometry (ELCAD-AES) method using formic acid is described for the determination of major to trace level of the elements Ni, Co, Fe, Mn, Mg, Cu, Cr, Pb, Ca in Zircaloys. The influence of HCOOH and CH 3 COOH to improve the sensitivity of ELCAD-AES for analyte determination is investigated. Sensitivity of ELCAD-AES was significantly improved with HCOOH for the determination of these elements. 20% (v/v) HCOOH was found to produce a maximum enhancement in the sensitivity of ELCAD-AES for the analytes. With 20% (v/v) HCOOH, improved detection limits were determined for Ni (5 ng mL À1 ), Co (9 ng mL À1 ), Fe (16 ng mL À1 ), Mn (7 ng mL À1 ), Mg (5 ng mL À1 ), Cu (6 ng mL À1 ), Cr (65 ng mL À1 ), Pb (10 ng mL À1 ), and Ca (8 ng mL À1 ). The improvement is 2-fold for most elements, 5-fold for Pb, and essentially unchanged for Cr. The use of HCOOH enabled the direct determination of analytes in Zircaloys by ELCAD-AES. The method has been validated by determining the concentrations of analytes Ni, Co, Fe, Mn, Mg, Cu, Cr, Pb, Ca in a Zircaloy certified reference material (Zircaloy-4 NIST-360b) and also in a Zircaloy sample which was analysed by glow discharge quadrupole mass spectrometer (GD-QMS). The precision expressed as a percentage relative standard deviation of signals of multiple analyses (N ¼ 4) of the ELCAD-AES method was found to be between 2 and 10% for major (>0.1 wt%) and minor level (<0.1 wt% and >100 mg g À1 ) elements and 10-15% for trace level (<100 mg g À1 and >10 ng g À1 ) elements. Depending on the levels of the impurities the relative error in accuracy of the ELCAD-AES method was found to be between 3 and 20%.