Clinical Reliability of Portable Autorefractor for Cataract Postoperative Patients
Narrative Responses:
Purpose
To evaluate the clinical reliability of objective auto-refraction, post-phacoemulsification cataract surgery, using the PlusOptix autorefractor device to measure sphere and cylinder.
Methods
All participants were patients that had undergone phacoemulsification cataract surgery at SpaMedica Eye Hospital, United Kingdom, in a high volume clinical setting. Patients were reviewed 4 weeks postoperatively and autorefraction, using the PlusOptix device, was conducted. Subjective refractions were obtained from referring opticians 1 week later. Pupils were dilated and two consecutive objective refraction readings were taken per eye. 149 eyes of 86 patients were included. Mean difference, standard deviation, and coefficient of reliability were calculated for each eye. Inter-measurement agreement was calculated per refractive measure (Bland-Altman) with 95% limits of agreement and 95% confidence intervals were constructed.
Results
Sphere: No significant difference between readings 1 and 2 for sphere measures (mean difference: -0.0336 D, SD: 0.3495 D; 95% CI: -0.0901D to 0.02303 D; r = 0.92443; p = 0.2431). Cylinder: No significant difference between readings 1 and 2 for cylinder measures (mean difference: -0.0319 D, SD: 0.33426 D; 95% CI: -0.086 D to 0.02223 D; r = 0.89649; p = 0.2462). Repeatability coefficients for sphere and cylinder were 0.699 and 0.66852, respectively.
Conclusion
The PlusOptix autorefractor is a reliable tool for measuring refractive outcome post-phacoemulsification cataract surgery. The device is already used as a screening tool for refractive errors in pediatric ophthalmology. This is the first time the device was used and assessed for measuring refractive status post-cataract surgery.