Aims: The study was aimed to review demographic characteristics and comorbid systemic and ocular disorders in patients who underwent cataract surgery in our clinic.
Study Design: Retrospective cross-sectional.
Place and Duration of Study: The study conducted in Department Of Ophthalmology, Ahi Evran University Faculty Of Medicine, Kırsehir, Turkey. The patients who underwent cataract surgery between November 2014 and December 2017 were evaluated retrospectively.
Methodology: We retrospectively reviewed 1197 patients diagnosed as cataract and underwent surgery. Age, gender, type of cataract, comorbid ocular disease, previous ocular surgeries and systemic diseases were recorded. By slit lamp examination with dilated pupils, cataract was classified as nuclear, cortical, posterior subcapsular, mixed and mature.
Results: Mean age was 67.87 ± 9.71 years (range: 45-95 years). Of the patients, 597 (49.9%) were female while 600 (50.1%) were male. The most common cataract type was nuclear cataract (27.2%); followed by posterior subcapsular cataract (24.7%), mixed cataract (23.1%), cortical cataract (14.9%) and mature cataract (10.0%). Hypertension was the most common systemic comorbidity (636 cases-46.9%), followed by diabetes mellitus (390 cases-32.6%). The most common ocular comorbidity was pseudo-exfoliation syndrome (121 cases-10.1%); followed by diabetic retinopathy of any stage (84 cases-7.0%).
Conclusion: Systemic and ocular comorbidities are commonly seen in the patients with senile cataract due to advanced age in these patients in general. All ocular and systemic comorbidities should be identified before surgery. These procedures will improve surgical success and prevents potential medico-legal issues after surgery.
Pediatric cataracts are one of the most common causes of visual impairment in children. A cataract is due to cloudiness in the crystalline lens. The lens is the part of the eye that helps focus light images onto the retina. The retina translates the information to nerve fibers and sends it to the brain for processing. If the lens is cloudy from a cataract, the image will be blurred and thus vision will be affected. The cloudiness in a cataract is due to the accumulation of protein crystals in the lens. The human lens consists of three main types of proteins that are very tightly packed together: α-, β-, and γ-crystalline [1]. The tight packaging of these proteins limits the amount of light scattering and thus creates a clear lens. If the proteins are altered it can increase space between the proteins and therefore increase light scattering, which causes cataracts.
Aims: This study aims to formulate and evaluate ophthalmic thermo-sensitive gels containing atorvastatin calcium. The major problem of the drug is poor water solubility, and hence the ocular bioavailability, complexation with cyclodextrin is an attempt to solve this problem. The formulations based mainly on Pluronic F127 alone or combined with other viscosity-increasing polymers.
Methodology: Atorvastatin calcium the proved effective anti-inflammatory agent used in ocular diseases was prepared and characterised in the form of hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrin complex. In this study, the possibility to formulate thermosetting gels containing either the free drug, drug-cyclodextrin physical mixture or complex was investigated by using heat sensitive polymers pluronic F127 alone or combined with other viscosity-increasing polymers such as methyl cellulose, PVP K25.
All formulations were characterised physically for its colour, clarity, viscosity, pH, and drug contents. Also the effect of different polymeric composition on the in-vitro release profiles of Atorvastatin calcium from different preparations was investigated.
Results: All preparations were found colourless, clear, and with accepted pH values, rheological properties and drug content. In vitro release studies of different formulations in Simulated tear, fluid indicated the possibility of altering the % drug release from thermosetting gels containing Atorvastatin calcium -HP-β-CyD complex relative to the free drug by modification the formulae prepared. Methyl cellulose in 2% was found to enhance the drug release profile of drug from Atorvastatin calcium -HP-β-CyD complex gels, while PVP K25 in 5% caused retardation of drug released from the prepared thermosetting gels.
Conclusions: Ophthalmic thermosetting gels formulations containing Atorvastatin calcium -HP-β-CyD complexes are considered good and promising delivery systems. They showed good physical properties. Depending on the type and concentration of the viscosity increasing polymer incorporated into the formulations, it can be applied either for improving or retardation of Atorvastatin calcium release profile.
Aims: To assess whether the spatial distortion underlying the so-called “thin man phenomenon” experienced by cortically impaired patients with homonymous defects depends on the cortical damage or on the scotoma itself.
Study Design: Analysis of a representative case.
Place and Duration of the Study: Service of Neuro-Ophthalmology, University of Turin, Italy, from January 2017 to July 2017.
Methodology: Spatial relationship perception, that is the function able to discriminate the extent of a shape along the cardinal coordinates, has been estimated in the visual field of a patient with left inferior quadrantanopia due to cerebral stroke at different eccentricities. The threshold as a function of the distance from the border of the scotoma was compared with two normal subjects after the same defect has been simulated.
Results: Spatial relationship perception was not affected by the simulated scotoma in the normal subjects, as shown by the lack of correlation between this variable and the distance from the upper border vs the nasal border of the deprived region. On the contrary, in the patient spatial relationship perception was anisotropic close to the boundary of the scotoma, and the effect decreased as a function of the distance from the blind region (R2=0.77, P: .04).
Conclusion: This finding suggests that the cortical impairment and not the scotoma itself is responsible for the spatial distortion in the presence of homonymous visual field defects.
Aim: Our aim was to compare refractive and anatomical parameters between right and left eyes and between the dominant and non-dominant eyes of right- and left-handed patients.
Study Design: Clinical observational study.
Methodology: Refractometry, optical biometry and Scheimpflug photography were performed in 163, healthy subjects (138 right-handed, 25 left-handed). A hole-in-the-card test was used to determine sighting dominance. The parameters were compared in three groups: differences between the right and left eyes; differences between the dominant and non-dominant eyes; differences between the right-dominant and left-dominant eyes.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 46.42±20.60 years. Among the right-handed patients, 77 were right-eye dominant and 61 were left-eye dominant. Significant differences were found regarding all observed parameters, excluding refraction data between the right and left eyes of the right-handed patients. Regarding dominant vs. non-dominant eyes of right-handed patients, only some data showed statistically significant differences. We could not find any significant differences in parameters of the left-handed group.
Conclusions: Significant differences were found in Scheimpflug-derived anatomical parameters of the left and right eyes of right-handed persons. However, when comparing the dominant and non-dominant eyes, our results show only isolated differences. Sighthing dominance plays a role in ophthalmology, but this is probably not related to anatomical differences.
