Perception of visual outcomes in patients after delayed compared with immediately sequential bilateral cataract surgery

Purpose: To evaluate patient-reported visual outcomes of immediately sequential bilateral cataract surgery (ISBCS) compared with delayed sequential bilateral cataract surgery (DSBCS).

Setting: Tertiary university teaching hospital of Laval University, Quebec City, Canada.

Design: Prospective observational cohort study.

Methods: The Catquest-9SF questionnaire was administered on the day of surgery for ISBCS patients and on the day of first-eye surgery for DSBCS patients who underwent cataract surgery between August and September 2021. The questionnaire was administered again 1 month postoperatively for ISBCS patients and 1 month postoperatively after each surgery for DSBCS patients.

Results: 186 patients (ISBCS: n = 152 vs DSBCS: n = 34) were included. At 1 month postoperatively, the Catquest-9SF score of ISBCS patients was significantly lower than that of DSBCS patients after first-eye surgery ( P < .001). Furthermore, the ISBCS group achieved significantly better scores on multiple tasks of the Catquest-9SF, such as reading text in the newspaper ( P < .001) or reading text on television ( P < .001). In multiple linear regression analysis, the type of surgery was the factor most associated with a lower Catquest-9SF score (β = -0.391, P < .001). 1 month after the second-eye surgery, DSBCS patients had achieved similar Catquest-9SF scores compared with ISBCS patients.

Conclusions: Compared with DSBCS patients, ISBCS patients had significantly greater perceived visual function and fewer vision-related limitations in their daily activities at 1 month postoperatively. This difference lost significance 1 month after the second-eye surgery of DSBCS patients. This patient-reported outcome study did not find evidence of perceived bilateral visual impairment in the early postoperative period after ISBCS.