Change in pre existing corneal astigmatism after phacoemulsification through clear corneal incision

Objective: to compare the change in pre existing corneal astigmatism after closing superonasal incisions by single 10/0 suture and by simple hydration at the time of cataract surgery with phacoemulsification through clear corneal incision. design: prospective,comparative and interventional. setting: department of ophthalmology,liaquat university of medical and health sciences jamshoro,during the period from jan 2011 to sept 2011. methods: this prospective study included 244 left eyes. all eyes went phacoemulsification through a clear corneal incision (3.0 mm) superonasally. first 122 eyes were closed with single 10/0 sutures and remaining 122 with simple hydration. magnitude of astigmatism was measured by keratometer at 1 week,4 and 8 weeks postoperatively. vector analysis method was used to calculate the surgical induced astigmatism. spss version 11.0 was used to analyze the data. p value 0.05 was considered significant. result: out of 244 patients 59.42% were males and 40.57% were female. the mean pre operative astigmatism was >1.0 d. in early days there no significant change in post operative astigmatism (0.50 ± 0.45 d / 0.75 ± 0.50 d,p value < 0.001) was found,but statistically significant change in magnitude of astigmatism (0.84 ± 0.69 d / 2.25 ± 0.70 d,p value 0.05) and surgically induced astigmatism (0.81 ± 0.62d / 1.12 ± 0.94d) was found in first and second group respectively at the end of follow-up. conclusion: closing of clear corneal incision superonasally with our technique in the left eyes is easy during phacoemulsification for right-handed surgeon without fear of increase in pre existing astigmatism.