EDITORIAL
Cataract
Tackling the greatest challenge in cataract surgery
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
D F Chang
University of California, San Francisco, Los Altos, CA 94024, USA; dceye@earthlink.net
From the standpoint of cost effectiveness manual small incision cataract surgery is clearly superior to the alternatives
Keywords: cataract surgery
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Despite all that modern technology has done to advance the treatment of cataracts, our greatest challenge continues to be the large and increasing backlog of cataract blindness in developing countries.1–5 While in North America and western Europe, intraocular lens (IOL) research and development are primarily directed towards reversing lens ageing (presbyopia), millions in developing nations with reversible blindness caused by cataracts go untreated.
Modern phacoemulsification machines are expensive to purchase and maintain, have relatively high disposable costs, and require extensive surgical training. Furthermore, for the more advanced and mature cataracts typical of underserved populations, performing phacoemulsification becomes more difficult and complication prone. What is needed is a high volume, cost effective, low technology procedure that can treat the most advanced of cataracts with a low complication rate in the shortest amount of time.
This very goal is being achieved in a handful of international programmes that are providing a
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