Prevalence of Second-Eye Cataract Surgery and Time Interval after First-Eye Surgery in Iran: A Clinic-Based Study

PURPOSE: To determine the prevalence of second-eye senile cataract surgery (SECS) as a proportion of all senile cataract surgeries and the trend in the interval between first and second cataract operations in a main referral and academic eye hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, a list of patients who underwent senile cataract surgery over four consecutive years (2006-2009) was retrieved from hospital computer-based records as the sampling frame. With a systematic random method, 15% of records were selected (1,585 out of 10,517 records). RESULTS: First- and second-eye operations were performed in 1,139 (71.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 69.5-74.1) and 446 eyes (28.1%; 95% CI, 25.9-30.35), respectively. The proportion of SECS procedures increased from 24.3% in 2006 to 33.4% in 2009 (P = 0.017). The median (interquartile range) interval between the two operations was 9 (4-24) months, which remained stable during the study period. The SECS rate was 10.4% higher (P = 0.01) and the time interval was 13 months shorter (P = 0.007) in patients who underwent phacoemulsification than extracapsular cataract extraction. CONCLUSION: The number of cataract operations in this tertiary eye care setting increased 1.5 fold over the study period. The proportion of second-eye operations also rose from 1/4 to 1/3 during the same time.