- January 22, 2025
Nearly 800 thousand people in Poland suffer from lens opacity. Worldwide, this number is rising to 20 million patients. This disease is manifested by visual disturbances, and the patient feels gradually deteriorating eyesight, discomfort when looking at light-emitting places, as well as spots appearing in the field of vision. An untreated condition can lead to permanent blindness and even the disappearance of the eyeball. How to cure cataracts? Is cataract surgery the only effective method?
It affects mainly elderly people who are over 60 years of age, so it is difficult to observe and diagnose, because the eyesight deteriorates with age and these people can often underestimate the symptoms. Cataract is one of the most common eye degenerative diseases. The disease is the blurring of the lens, the most important role of which is to enable sharp vision of things located at different distances.
The most commonly used method of cataract treatment is phacoemulsification, i.e. surgical procedure, which involves breaking up the cloudy lens with the use of ultrasound waves and removing its remains from the eye. A new lens is implanted in place of the occupied lens. This operation is performed under local drip anaesthesia. Most often the procedure lasts from several to several dozen minutes. This is a short procedure (under drip anaesthesia), after which the patient is quickly discharged home - even on the same day. This is one of the most commonly used methods of cataract surgery.
There are also other methods of cataract surgery. Among them is the non - phaco technique, which is a seamless method of surgery, during which a small incision of the eye is also made. The lens is led through a hardening tunnel, i.e. a notch in the eyeball with a diameter of 6-7 mm.
ECCE is an extracorporeal cataract removal, which is a classic surgical method in which the rear lens capsule is spared, leaving it in place and a rear ventricular implant is implanted - between the iris and the preserved capsule. However, this method is now being abandoned because it has the greatest complications due to the need to make a large incision in the eyeball.
