POSTERIOR CHAMBER LENS IMPLANTATION FOR PRIMARY REPAIR OF CORNEAL LACERATIONS AND TRAUMATIC CATARACTS IN CHILDREN

Children older than 3 years of age rarely tolerate contact lenses for unilateral surgical aphakia. This problem is even more pronounced foll owing repair of corneal lacerations or perforations that are associate d with traumatic cataracts. Even if surgery is successful, such eyes a re functionally doomed because of deep anisometropic amblyopia. We eva luated prospectively in 15 children (3 to 8 years) the results of comb ined operation of corneal repair, aspiration of traumatic cataract, an d primary posterior chamber lens implantation. Postoperative occlusion treatment was carefully monitored. Follow up ranged from 6 to 60 mont hs, with an average of 39.2 months. The final best corrected visual ac uity at the patient's last visit was 20/40 or better in 11 of 15 child ren (73.3%). The most frequent complication was a nonfunctional pupil due to traumatic iris damage or posterior synechiae in 13 cases. The m ost visually significant complication was posterior membrane formation and/or posterior capsule opacification, which required additional sur geries in six children.