I often hear from patients that they need to wait for cataracts to mature before having surgery. Is this true? Cataracts are now commonly treated with ultrasound emulsification and extracapsular cataract extraction, so there is no need to wait until they are mature before surgery. Surgery can be considered as long as the cataract is affecting your life. Waiting blindly may increase the risk of other complications. For nuclear cataracts, the later the surgery, the harder the cataract nucleus will be and how it will increase the difficulty and risk of surgery.