Vv. Kayarkar et S. Dinakaran, Topical anesthesia for phacoemulsification and painless subconjunctival antibiotic injection, J CAT REF S, 27(2), 2001, pp. 198-200
Endophthalmitis is a serious postoperative complication of phacoemulsificat
ion surgery. Administration of a subconjunctival antibiotic is a common met
hod of prophylaxis in the United Kingdom and other countries. Injection of
subconjunctival cefuroxime can be very painful, especially after phacoemuls
ification under topical anesthesia. Our experience is that this could be th
e only painful step in the entire operation. We evaluated a technique in wh
ich buffered lignocaine is injected into the subconjunctival space before t
he antibiotic injection. The technique was used in 46 eyes (46 patients) th
at had phacoemulsification under topical anesthesia. Eighty-seven percent o
f patients found the injection painless, 6.5% reported that the pain was ve
ry negligible, and 6.5% reported a moderate degree of pain. J Cataract Refr
act Surg 2001; 27:198-200 (C) 2001 ASCRS and ESCRS.