Cataracts are relatively easy and clear to diagnose, and although many professional scientists have devoted themselves to finding drugs to treat or delay the onset and progression of cataracts over the years, so far, however, there are no drugs with proven efficacy. Surgery is still the most important means of treatment. How to choose the timing of cataract surgery? In the past, it was believed that cataracts must wait until maturity (i.e., complete blindness) before surgery, and some patients came to the hospital for consultation and surgery only when they were blind in both eyes, and some even had serious complications. With the continuous development and maturity of cataract removal and IOL implantation technology, the previous traditional viewpoint has lagged behind. Generally speaking, surgery can be considered when the corrected visual acuity is below 0.3, and there is no need to wait for complete blindness. Once the cataract enters the mature and over-ripe stage (complete blindness), it will be much more difficult to operate and the chance of complications will be greatly increased due to the deepening of various structures inside the eye over time, and the recovery time and process after surgery will be relatively longer. The patient’s recovery after surgery will be faster. Of course, due to the different vision requirements of different patients, or due to other diseases, special patients can advance or postpone the surgery according to the specialist’s opinion.
Recent studies have shown that yellow races, because of their relatively small eyeballs and relatively narrow atrial angle area responsible for intraocular drainage, are prone to increased intraocular pressure caused by the development of cataract expansion, leading to acute or chronic attacks of angle-closure glaucoma. Therefore, patients diagnosed with cataracts, especially those with a family history of glaucoma, should visit the hospital ophthalmology department regularly for IOP testing, and if the IOP is elevated, they can consider receiving cataract surgery in advance to prevent the onset of closed-angle glaucoma.