Under-air staining of the anterior capsule using Trypan blue with a 30 G needle.

The original technique of staining the anterior capsule of the lens with Trypan blue involves the injection of an air bubble in the anterior chamber. A drawback of this technique is the possible instability of the anterior chamber caused by the sudden exit of air when the dye is injected with the cannula through the side-port incision. Other staining techniques that use viscoelastic substances to increase the stability of the anterior chamber and to dose the injected dye have been described. The authors present an under-air staining technique of the anterior capsule using one drop of Trypan blue injected with a 30 G needle through the peripheral cornea. This procedure prevents the air bubble from escaping the anterior chamber and allows fast and selective staining of the capsule.

Comparison of macular thickness measurements between time-domain and spectral-domain optical coherence tomographies in eyes with and without macular abnormalities.

PURPOSE: To compare Stratus time-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) with Cirrus spectral-domain HD-OCT for measuring macular thickness in eyes with and without macular abnormalities. METHODS: Seventy-five eyes of 48 patients were included in the study. Forty-one eyes of 29 patients had a normal macular thickness, and 34 eyes of 26 patients had an abnormal macular thickness. Macular scans were performed by 2 examiners (E1 and E2) with both OCTs. The agreement between the two OCT systems and interrater repeatability of each OCT system were determined using the Bland-Altman method. RESULTS: Mean agreement between the 2 OCTs as 1.96 × standard deviation of the mean difference between the measurements of central macular subfield was 21 µm in normal eyes and 36.8 µm in abnormal eyes. In five macular subfields, the agreement was significantly better in normal eyes. Cirrus HD-OCT repeatability was significantly better than Stratus in five macular subfields in normal eyes and in six macular subfields in abnormal eyes. The repeatability was significantly better in normal eyes in five macular subfields for Stratus and in three macular subfields for Cirrus HD-OCT. CONCLUSION: The agreement between the two OCTs is low and varies in each macular subfield. Cirrus HD-OCT has shown a better repeatability than Stratus OCT, especially when measuring eyes with a thickened macula.