Elsevier

Ophthalmology

Volume 106, Issue 1, 1 January 1999, Pages 60-66
Ophthalmology

A comparison of patient comfort during cataract surgery with topical anesthesia versus topical anesthesia and intracameral lidocaine1,

Presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting, San Francisco, California, October 1997.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0161-6420(99)90007-6Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

To determine whether intraocular lidocaine increases patient comfort during cataract surgery while under topical anesthesia.

Design

Prospective, randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled clinical trial.

Participants

Both men and women between 45 and 85 years of age who were scheduled for elective cataract surgery while under topical anesthesia participated. Sixty-eight patients were randomized to each group.

Intervention

Patients were randomized to receive either topical anesthesia plus intracameral 1% preservative-free lidocaine or intracameral balanced salt solution.

Main outcome measures

Patient assessment of pain during delivery of the anesthesia, surgery, and after surgery using a visual analog pain scale was measured. Patients also recorded the degree to which they were bothered by tissue manipulation and the microscope light. Surgeon assessments of operative conditions, patient cooperation, and intraoperative complications were recorded. The attending anesthesiologist recorded any required supplemental intravenous sedation and any increase in pulse or increase in blood pressure.

Results

There was no significant difference in patient-reported pain scores for delivery of anesthesia (P = 0.902), surgery (P = 0.170), or after surgery (P = 0.680). Patients in the lidocaine group reported being less bothered by tissue manipulation (P = 0.021). The surgeon assessment showed more patient cooperation in the lidocaine group (P = 0.043).

Conclusions

Both topical anesthesia alone and topical anesthesia plus intracameral lidocaine provide good operative conditions for the surgeon and comfortable surgical circumstances for the patient. Injection of intraocular lidocaine increases patient cooperation and decreases the degree to which patients are bothered by tissue manipulation, two outcomes that justify its use.

Section snippets

Rabbit studies

Approval was received from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of Utah. Twenty-five New Zealand white rabbits were anesthetized with ketamine (50 mg/kg) and xylazine (7 mg/kg) at a mixture of 7 to 1, respectively. A 75-super-sharp blade was used to make a stab incision into the anterior chamber of the right eye. A tuberculin syringe with a 30-gauge cannula was used to inject 0.25 ml of 1% preservative-free lidocaine (pH 6.5) (Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, IL)

Rabbit studies

Each of the 25 eyes in the 2 groups was successfully treated, harvested, and analyzed. Of the 25 eyes treated with 1% preservative-free intraocular lidocaine for 10 minutes, the average endothelial damage was 8.1 ± 5.6%. The 25 eyes in the BSS control group showed an average endothelial damage of 8.4 ± 6.1%. This difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.43).

Human studies

Sixty-eight patients were entered into each group. The surgical conditions and complications are given in Table 1. The surgeon

Discussion

Our original study comparing topical anesthesia for cataract surgery with traditional retrobulbar injection anesthesia convincingly showed that topical anesthesia provided safe operating conditions and good patient comfort.26 Visual analog intraoperative pain scores for the 69 patients in the topical anesthesia group averaged 1.13, with 57 patients recording a score of 0 or no pain at all.26 This was not significantly different (P = 0.35) from the intraoperative pain scores recorded by the

References (31)

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    Citation Excerpt :

    Other studies have also shown it provides increased patient cooperation and reduced sensation of procedure steps when topical modalities are selected as the primary anesthesia choice.20,30,40,103 In comparison studies, intracameral anesthesia has not shown significant benefit in reducing postoperative pain.20,64 An intraoperative adjunctive analgesic modality that was USA Food and Drug Administration–approved May 2014, is Omidria (Omeros, Seattle, WA), a combination intracameral injection of phenylephrine and ketorolac.

View all citing articles on Scopus

Supported in part by an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc., New York, New York, to the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

1

The authors have no proprietary interests in any product mentioned in this article.

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