Changing techniques in cataract surgery: how have patients benefited?

COMMUNITY EYE HEALTH JOURNAL | VOLUME 30 | NUMBER 100 | 2017 The first record of cataract being surgically treated is by Susruta, who carried out the procedure in 600 BC. Cataracts were treated using a technique known as couching, in which the opaque lens is pushed into the vitreous cavity to remove it from the visual axis. Couching is still performed in some parts of Africa and the Middle East. In 1753, Samuel Sharp performed the first intracapsular cataract extraction (ICCE) through a limbal incision. He used pressure from his thumb to extract the lens. In 1961, Polish surgeon Tadeusz Krwawicz developed a cryoprobe which could be used to grasp and extract cataracts during ICCE surgery. However, an aphakic spectacle correction was still required. When the first edition of the Community Eye Health Journal was published, ICCE was still the most widely practised method of cataract extraction in lowand middle-income countries. However, in high-income countries, ICCE had been superseded by extracapsular surgery with an IOL implant.