Is There a Latent Period for the Surgical Treatment of Children with Dense Bilateral Congenital Cataracts?
Lambert SR1, Lynn MJ.2, Reeves R1, Plager DA3, Buckley EG4, Wilson ME5: 1Emory Eye Center, Atlanta, GA; 2Department of Biostatistics, Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, Atlanta, GA; 3Department of Ophthalmology, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN; 4Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University, Durham, NC; 5Department of Ophthalmology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC It is generally accepted that infants with a cataract in one eye have the best visual result if cataract surgery is performed by the time a child is 6 weeks of age. It has never been determined if the same time frame applies for children with cataracts in both eyes. Studies performed on animals would suggest that bilateral visual deprivation affects the developing visual system quite differently than unilateral visual deprivation. We reviewed the visual results of 43 children with dense bilateral cataracts who underwent cataract surgery during the first year of life. We found good vi