Changes in Intraocular Straylight and Visual Acuity with Age in Cataracts of Different Morphologies

Abstract

Purpose To investigate the significance of difference in straylight of cataract eyes with different morphologies, as a function of age and visual acuity. Methods A literature review to collect relevant papers on straylight, age, and visual acuity of three common cataract morphologies leads to including five eligible papers for the analysis. The effect of morphology was incorporated to categorize straylight dependency on the two variables. We also determined the amount of progression in a cataract group using a control group. Results The mean straylight was 1.22 log units ± 0.20 (SD) in nuclear (592 eyes), 1.26 log units ± 0.23 in cortical (776 eyes), and 1.48 log units ± 0.34 in posterior subcapsular (75 eyes) groups. The slope of straylight-age relationship was 0.009 (R 2 = 0.20) in nuclear, 0.012 (R 2 = 0.22) in cortical, and 0.014 (R 2 = 0.11) in posterior subcapsular groups. The slope of straylight-visual acuity relationship was 0.62 (R 2 = 0.25) in nuclear, 0.33 (R 2 = 0.13) in cortical, and 1.03 (R 2 = 0.34) in posterior subcapsular groups. Conclusion Considering morphology of cataract provides a better insight in assessing visual functions of cataract eyes, in posterior subcapsular cataract, particularly, in spite of notable elevated straylight, visual acuity might not manifest severe loss.

<p>Straylight As The Result Of Refractive Correction</p>

“…Although some studies have shown that age and iris pigmentation9,17,18,25–28 can have significant effect on straylight values, in the present study, age, iris pigmentation, and all the other tested parameters were not significant. Probably, the fact that age is not significant in our study population is caused by a selection effect because we only selected subjects between 18 and 35 years of age.…”

Effect of Cataract Extraction on Retinal Sensitivity Measurements

“…A possible explanation for this is the different optical characteristics of the 3 main cataract subtypes. PSC cataract causes a higher increase in stray light even before VA drops, leading to a reduction in quality of life [17, 18]. In contrast to nuclear cataract, cortical and PSC cataracts tend to reduce contrast sensitivity even in the early stages, possibly due to stray light and glare [19].…”

Contrast sensitivity and retinal straylight after alcohol consumption: effects on driving performance

“…The forward scattering affecting the retinal image was tested by measuring the retinal straylight. To do this, we used the OCULUS C-Quant straylight meter (Oculus DG, Germany), whose reliability has been widely proved in research 6,30 . The test consists of an outer ring, which represents the straylight source and presents a real flicker, and the central test, divided into two fields.…”