Under normal circumstances, it is transparent and light is focused on the retina so that people can see objects clearly. Once the lens becomes cloudy for some reason, light cannot enter the eye properly and reach the retina, making it difficult for people to see, that is, the cloudy lens causes vision loss, which is called cataract. Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness and vision impairment worldwide, and they occur in everyone who reaches a certain age, mostly above 50. As the population grows and ages, cataracts will become more and more common.
There are many causes of cataracts, the most common being senile cataracts, the pathogenesis of which is not yet fully understood and may be related to ageing, long-term excessive exposure to ultraviolet light, genetic factors and malnutrition. In addition, there are also congenital cataracts, metabolic cataracts caused by diabetes, and cataracts caused by complications of high myopia, etc. commonly found in clinical practice.
What are the symptoms of cataract? The symptoms of cataract in general are gradual loss of vision and finally blindness, without painful sensation during the whole process of development. In addition to the loss of vision, some patients appear to have a fixed black shadow in front of their eyes, and some appear to have monocular diplopia and increased myopia. If a patient suddenly feels a significant loss of vision without pain, he or she should consider whether there is a lesion in the fundus, such as fundus hemorrhage, optic nerve papillopathy or retinal detachment, etc. He or she must see an ophthalmologist immediately and not mistake it for the cause of cataract.
During the development of senile cortical cataracts, there is a process called the “expansion phase” in which the anterior chamber becomes shallow as the lens volume increases and thickens. Patients with glaucoma may experience eye redness, eye pain, headache, nausea, vomiting, rapid vision loss or even loss of light perception. If this condition is not treated in time, it will cause permanent blindness, and even if cataract surgery is performed again, the vision cannot be saved.
How to treat cataract Cataract cannot be treated by medication, and surgery is still the only effective way to treat cataract. Early cataract vision has little effect on vision and does not require any treatment. As the condition progresses, vision will gradually decline. If vision declines to the point that it affects the patient’s life and work then surgery can be performed. Some people think that cataracts are mature enough to be treated without surgery, just because they can’t see. This is actually a very wrong and dangerous view. These eye diseases mostly occur in the middle and late stages of cataract. Once these conditions occur, they will have serious consequences, not only causing long-term eye pain that is unbearable, but even leading to blindness and eye atrophy.
Some patients have to have their eyes removed as a last resort due to glaucoma secondary to cataract. Therefore, we remind everyone that cataracts must be treated surgically when they reach a certain level of development. The traditional surgical method for cataract is cataract intracapsular extraction cataract extracapsular extraction. These methods have been eliminated due to poor surgical results. With the improvement of microsurgical techniques, modern cataract extracapsular extraction combined with human lens implantation has been widely popularized. In recent years, cataract ultrasonic emulsion aspiration combined with human lens implantation has been carried out. This surgery is performed by crushing and aspirating the lens nucleus and cortex through a corneal incision of about 3 mm, and then implanting an artificial lens. This surgery has the advantages of small incision, fast healing after surgery, small corneal astigmatism, and satisfactory visual acuity at an early stage.