Transient complete visual loss and subsequent cystoid macular edema after intracameral lidocaine injection following uneventful cataract surgery

Purpose: to report a case of transient visual loss following uncomplicated cataract surgery with unpreserved intracameral lidocaine. methods: a 61-year-old woman with nuclear sclerosis cataract underwent uncomplicated phacoemulsification and in-the-bag intraocular lens (iol) implantation. results: after opening the eye patch on the first postoperative day, the patient complained of complete blindness. her vision was no light perception (nlp) and the marcus-gunn was found to be 4+. eight hours later, the patient's visual acuity improved to count fingers at 1 m. after two days, the vision improved surprisingly to 20/20 without any marcus-gunn. after 4 weeks, the vision decreased surprisingly to 20/80 without any marcus-gunn. on this day, macular optical coherence tomography (oct) was performed, and cystoid macular edema was detected. conclusion: transient visual loss after intracameral lidocaine has been reported after violation of posterior capsule during cataract surgery, and here, we report a case of transient visual loss despite uncomplicated cataract surgery.