Objective:

Determine the relationship between the severity of corneal edema in cornea guttata patients undergoing phacoemulsification considered to be at no risk or low risk for postsurgical edema in terms of cell density, and crystalline lens hardness and phacodynamic parameters.

Methods:

A descriptive prospective study was conducted of 42 cornea guttata patients considered to be at no risk or low risk for postsurgical edema in terms of cell density, who underwent phacoemulsification performed by the same surgeon at Ramón Pando Ferrer Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology from April 2016 to April 2017. Corneal edema severity was related to crystalline lens hardness and phacodynamic parameters.

Results:

A predominance was found of patients aged 70 years and over (52.4%) and the female sex (64.3%). Twenty-four hours after surgery corneal edema was not observed in 54.8% and where it was present it was either mild (26.2%) or minimum (19.0%). At 7 days 71.4% of the patients had a transparent cornea. It was more common on the periphery and in the temporal paracentral area (36.8%). Patients with NO2 NC2 crystalline lens hardness did not have corneal edema. At 7 days only 11.9% had mild edema associated to NO4 NC4 or higher crystalline lenses. Corneal edema was associated to the group in which an ultrasound power level between 10 and 20 (36.0%) was used.

Conclusions:

Most cornea guttata patients considered to be at no risk or low risk for postsurgical edema in terms of cell density do not develop postphacoemulsification edema.

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