Parul Chawla Gupta, MS, MBBS, of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in India, spoke with Ophthalmology 360 at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Annual Meeting about the most optimal time to remove sutures after surgery in pediatric patients with cataracts.
Parul Chawla Gupta, MS, MBBS:
I presented this very informative study in the pediatric cataract surgery group. That is the outcome of early versus late removal of tenon nylon sutures in the patients having bilateral developmental or congenital cataract. We noticed that the patients, the children who had an earlier suture removal, that is at 2 weeks, vis-a-vis the patients who had a suture removal at 6 weeks, the 2-week group, they fared much better in terms of suture related complications. The 6 weeks group, they had 100% suture related complication rate vis-a-vis 24% in the 2-week suture removal group. What were the complications? The complications related to sutures were like loosening of sutures, mucous debris at the sutures, corneal neovascularization at the suture site, and there was more suture breakage also in the 6-week group.
We also did a subgroup analysis of the anterior segment OCT findings of the incision architecture in both the groups, and we found there was hardly any difference, though the healing was definitely better in the 6 weeks group as seen as a hyper-reflective line, and epithelial and endothelial gaping was better in the 6 weeks group as compared to the two weeks group. But we carried out a serous test in both the groups, and in both the groups, even at the 2 weeks group, it was totally negative. There was no leakage of aqueous humor when we remove the sutures early, as early as 2 to 3 weeks.
We as a group, we recommend early suture removal, that is at 2 to 3 weeks, instead of removing sutures at 6 weeks in the pediatric cataract surgery group because they heal very fast and the suture related complications are much more in the 6-week group as compared to the 2-week group. This is the study that we presented. Thank you so much.
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