Bilateral optic neuritis following cataract extraction.

OPTIC neuritis is a rare sequel of cataract extraction. Reese and Carroll (1958) described seventeen cases, of which nine were their own. Three of the patients, who had both eyes operated on, suffered the same complication in the second eye, but seven other patients had no complications in the second eye. They had found no other definite cases in the literature, and we have found only two further references to the condition. Townes (1960) mentioned optic neuritis as a complication of cataract extraction, and Mitchell, Anderson, and Anderson (1963), in a description of the post-operative complications of cataract extraction, reported that "one patient of the senior staff series developed retrobulbar neuritis post-operatively, or the optic nerve may have been injured with the retrobulbar needle".