Comparison of ultrasound and optic biometry with respect to eye refractive errors after phacoemulsification

Background: phacoemulsification is one of the best surgical treatments for the cataract. secondary to the technicaladvances in estimating the intraocular lens (iol) power, the refractive errors, one of the most important surgical complicationsafter surgery, is now reduced. currently, two methods of biometry are used to calculate the iol power, ultrasoundbiometry and optical biometry. both methods have their own advantages and it is controversial to use which ofthem before surgery. we would like to know if there is any difference between these two biometry methods to reducerefractive errors after cataract surgery.methods: present research was a cohort study on the patients undergone phacoemulsification due tocataract in feiz and farabi academic hospitals and aban ophthalmology clinic. we compared eyerefractions after cataract surgery in two groups of patients. ultrasound biometry was done for thefirst group and the optical biometry for the second one. mean absolute refractive error (mae) wascompared in the two groups by t test.results: eye refractions of 132 patients were studied; 76 patients in group one and 56 patients in group two. the maemeasured 0.67 (plus-minus) 0.70 diopters for the first group and 0.79 (plus-minus) 0.76 diopters for the second one and the difference was notsignificant (p = 0.342).conclusions: according to our results the refractive errors after phacoemulsification was the same for both ultrasoundand optical biometry methods. the claim of optical biometry, however, to gain a higher precision and thus a significantlybetter prediction of individual postoperative refraction after cataract surgery is not yet fulfilled. to determinewhich method is definitely better, more studies are required.