Contact lenses recommended for post-cataract children

A new trial in the US has recommended that contact lenses are not only as effective as an intraocular lens (IOL) for post-cataract surgery children, they are safer.

The report, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, involved 12 clinical centres and enrolled 114 children with congenital unilateral cataracts who were between one and six months old. At ages one and 4.5 years there were no differences in visual acuity between the IOL and CL groups, but the IOL group had more post-surgical complications.

The most common complication was lens reproliferation, when leftover lens cells from cataract surgery migrate into the pupil and interfere with vision. By the age of five, lens reproliferation was 10 times more common in the IOL group at 40 per cent, compared with 4 per cent in the CL group, resulting in 72 per cent of infants in the IOL group and 21 per cent in the CL group needing additional surgery.