Clinical and demographic profile of pediatric cataracts among Omani children presenting to a tertiary eye care center, Oman

CONTEXT: This study aimed to know the clinical and demographic profile of pediatric cataracts in Oman. AIMS: The aim of this study was to describe the demographic and clinical profile of pediatric cataracts in a tertiary care hospital, Oman. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: This was a hospital-based, retrospective observational study. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A retrospective cross-sectional study of all Omani children presented to ophthalmology outpatient at a tertiary hospital, between January 2012 and December 2016. All patients aged <18 years presented with lens opacity were included in the study. Traumatic cataract cases were excluded from the study. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: SPSS version 22.0 International Business Machines, (Armonk, New York, Unites States of America, dated 8/13/13) used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Among 379 eyes of 239 patients, 58.6% (140 patients) had bilateral cataracts. Male-to-female ratio was 1.38:1. We arrived at prevalence of 4.32 with 95% confidence interval (3.85, 4.77) of congenital cataract cases/10,000 Omani Children. Most patients (54%) were from either Muscat (28.9%) or A’Sharqiyah (25.1%). The median age of cataracts first noticed by parents was 3 months and the median age of presentation to the eye care unit was 15 months. Patients with positive family history significantly (P = 0.007) presented with bilateral cataracts (75%). About 22.2% of the patients had associated systemic diseases. Among those with systemic association, 77.4% of cases had bilateral cataracts. About 35.4% of eyes had another ocular association. The most common ocular association was squint (11.1%). The most common cataract morphologies at presentation were 20.1% presenting with total lens opacities and 19.8% with posterior subcapsular/posterior lenticonus. CONCLUSIONS: A higher demographic distribution of pediatric cataracts was found in Muscat governorate. There was a significant median delay in presentation to the pediatric ophthalmology clinic by 12 months since lens opacity was first noticed by parents.