Usefulness of surgical complexity classification index in cataract surgery process. / Utilidad del índice de complejidad quirúrgica en el proceso de cirugía de catarata.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the usefulness of surgical complexity classification index (SCCI) to predict the degree of surgical difficulty in cataract surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This retrospective study includes data collected between January 2013 and December 2014 from patients who underwent cataract extraction by phacoemulsification at our hospital. A sample size of 159 patients was obtained by simple random sampling (P=.5, 10% accuracy, 95% confidence). The main variables were: recording and value of SCCI in electronic medical record (EMR), presence of exfoliation syndrome (XFS), criteria for inclusion in surgical waiting list (SWL), and functional results. SCCI was classified into 7 categories (range: 1-4) according to predictors of technical difficulty, which was indirectly estimated in terms of surgical time (ST). All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS v15.0 statistical software. RESULTS: Prevalence of XFS was 18.2% (95%CI: 11.9-24.5). In terms of quality indicators in the cataract surgery process, 96.8% of patients met at least one of the criteria to be included in SWL, and 98.1% gained ≥2 Snellen lines. The SCCI was recorded in EMR of 98.1% patients, and it was grouped for study into 2 categories: High and low surgical complexity. Statistically significant differences in the distribution of ST were found depending on the assigned SCCI (P<.005) and the presence of XFS (P<.005). CONCLUSIONS: The SCCI enables to estimate the degree of surgical complexity in terms of ST in cataract surgery, which is especially useful in those areas with high prevalence of XFS, because of the higher theoretical risk of surgical complications.

Variabilidad clínica en la cirugía de la catarata / Clinical practice variation in cataract surgery

PROPÓSITO: Las tasas de la cirugía de la catarata han aumentado de forma espectacular en las últimas dos décadas. Sin embargo, las variaciones en la práctica clínica en esta cirugía no han sido estudiadas en profundidad. El objetivo de esta revisión es el análisis de dicha variabilidad, incluyendo los factores que la originan y las consecuencias sobre la calidad asistencial y la planificación sanitaria. Asimismo se resalta la importancia de reducirla y se exponen diversas estrategias que permiten su control. Hallazgos recientes: A lo largo del artículo se presentan las últimas investigaciones en las que se considera que el desarrollo y la implementación de guías de práctica clínica constituyen la mejor herramienta para estandarizar los procesos de cuidados. CONCLUSIÓN: El control del componente injustificado o no deseado de las variaciones, además de mejorar la calidad asistencial, puede suponer un importante ahorro en el gasto sanitario

PURPOSE: Cataract surgery rates have dramatically increased in the last two decades. However, clinical practice variation in cataract surgery has not been thoroughly studied. The aim of this review is to analyze clinical practice variation, including the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. Then, its role in health care planning and health care quality is focused, emphasizing the importance of reducing it and providing several practical strategies to accomplish it. Recent findings: The latest researches are presented in this article. They identify the development and implementation of clinical practice guidelines as the best tool to standardize care processes. CONCLUSION: Managing unwarranted or unwanted variation would improve quality of care and may lead to a significant saving in health care spending

Coloboma de cristalino / Crystalline coloboma

CASO CLÍNICO: Paciente mujer de 73 años diagnosticada de coloboma de cristalino tras ser derivada a consulta para cirugía de catarata. DISCUSIÓN: La incidencia de coloboma en España por cada 10.000 nacimientos es de 0,5, en Francia de 1,4, en Estados Unidos de 2,6 y en China de 7,5. El diagnóstico es clínico mediante visualización directa. El pronóstico visual depende de la extensión y gravedad del defecto. El tratamiento de la catarata se realizó mediante la técnica convencional de facoemulsificación más lente intraocular de cápsula posterior (FACO + LIO CP) con ayuda de anillo de tensión capsular

CASE REPORT: We present a seventy-three year-old female diagnosed with lens coloboma when she was going to be operated on for cataracts. DISCUSSION: The incidence of congenital coloboma of the eye is estimated to be 0.5 per 10000 newborns in Spain, 1.4 in France, 2.6 in United States, and 7.5 in China. The diagnosis is clinical by observing the defect. The visual prognosis depends on the extent and severity of the coloboma. The treatment of the cataract was by phacoemulsification with an intraocular lens using a capsular tension ring

Historia de la cirugía de cataratas (II): desde la extracción del cristalino hasta la facoemulsificación / History of cataract surgery (II): From the removal of the lens to phacoemulsification

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Coding accuracy for endophthalmitis diagnosis and cataract procedures in Western Australia. The Endophthalmitis Population Study of Western Australia (EPSWA): second report.

As an initial phase of the Endophthalmitis Population Study of Western Australia (EPSWA), this paper reports the results from an intensive comparative validation of all possible surgery-related endophthalmitis cases identified for the period from 1980 to June 1999 from the Hospital Morbidity Data System (HMDS) of the WA Record Linkage Project with external sources. The external sources were the microbiology and anaesthetic databases from Royal Perth Hospital (where most of the cases of endophthalmitis were treated) and surgeon logbooks of two vitreoretinal surgeons treating endophthalmitis in Perth over the study period. As it was discovered that a large proportion of all cases coded with endophthalmitis did not have any ocular surgery, the validation also included a sample from these cases. The purpose of validating these cases was to ensure that our count of post-operative endophthalmitis had not excluded any cases whose surgery might not have been recorded in the HMDS database. It was also intended to provide an estimate of all miscoded endophthalmitis cases as a first step towards future improvement of coding accuracy. Since we suspected that phaco-emulsification was under-coded, we also examined a sample of cataract procedures. Of all surgery-related endophthalmitis cases coded in the HMDS, only 50.9% (274 of 538) were found to be valid cases. External sources identified 83 cases of endophthalmitis, 49 did not have endophthal-mitis codes but were in the HMDS file with an associated code. Of the remaining externally identified cases, 13 were missing altogether from the HMDS file, 7 of which were correctly coded in the notes while the other 6 were coded with associated codes, and 21 were diagnosed after the date the HMDS file was extracted. The validation of a random sample of the non-surgery-related cases coded with endophthalmitis suggested that the vast majority of them were miscoded (88%, 139 of 158 sampled from 1474 cases). The systematic coding errors reported in this paper may be attributed to both the clinical and the coding departments of the hospital. In any case, coding inaccuracy itself is a serious concern for data quality of any linked database systems and for epidemiological researchers using such data. The increased use of aggregated data in epidemiological research further underscores the importance of coding accuracy and thus data validation. The use of external sources for case identification and case validation are two ways of ensuring data completeness/quality and validity of results.

Determinación de elementos trazas en cataratas humanas mediante fluorescencia de rayos X por reflección total / Determination of the elements to trace in human waterfalls using the technique of fluorescence of X-rays in total reflection

La finalidad del presente trabajo de investigación fue desarollar una metodología experimental, utilizando la Técnica de Fluorescencia de Rayos-X en Reflexión Total, adaptada específicamente para el análisis multielemental en muestra de cataratas humanas. Se determinaron las concentraciones de 13 elementos trazas, en dos grupos de cataratas humanas- seniles y diabéticas- con peso atómico Z < 14. Los elementos detectados fueron:P,S,CI,K,Ca,Ti,Cr,Fe,Cu,Zn,Se,Br y Rb. De estos, Br,Cl y Rb mostraron diferencias estadísticamente significativas (p<0,005), al comparar las concentraciones de las cataratas diabéticas con aquellas relacionadas con la edad. La TXRF es un procedimiento con amplio potencial de aplicaciones prácticas, que abre nuevas líneas de investigación, particularmente en el análisis de muestras de fluidos y tejidos oculares