Comparison of astigmatism after cataract surgery with separate & running sutures

Cataract surgery is common and one of the most common surgery techniques is extra capsular cataract extraction (ECCE). The most important factor in recovery of visual acuity after cataract surgery is postoperative astigmatism. In this study the resulted astigmatism of cataract surgery sutured by two methods of running and separate was compared. Patients were operated as ECCE and most of them with Pc Iol implantation and then all of them were sutured with Nylon 10.0. Corneal sutures of 104 cases were running and of 53 cases were separated. 39% of patients were women and 61% were men. The mean of preoperative astigmatism was 0.11 diopter. The mean of postoperative astigmatism one day after operation was 5.19 diopter (running: 4.7; separated: 5.7), and 3 months after operation was 1.58 diopter (running: 1.12; separated: 2.05). From the fourth week after surgery the difference between the two methods was significant. According to above data, running sutures are better tolerated by patients and induce less postoperative astigmatism.