Peripheral ulcerative keratopathy and necrotizing scleritis have been reported in rheumatoid arthritis patients after cataract surgery, but the incidence of these complications during the immediate postoperative period is unknown. We retrospectively studied 70 patients with rheumatoid arthritis who underwent a total of 86 cataract extractions between 1973 and 1988. Only 15 of the patients had a preoperative history of keratoconjunctivitis sicca. The best corrected postoperative visual acuity was greater than or equal to 20/30 in 81% of eyes. No episodes of scleritis or peripheral ulcerative keratopathy occurred during the 8-week postoperative period. Three patients (all from the sicca group) developed diffuse superficial punctate keratopathy and/or filamentary keratitis. Results suggest that serious corneal complications after cataract surgery are uncommon in rheumatoid arthritis patients similar to the population found in our study (95% Poisson confidence interval 0-6.6%).