In children, cataract causes more visual disability than any other form of treatable blindness. Children with untreated, visually significant cataracts face a lifetime of blindness at the tremendous quality of life and socioeconomic costs to the child, the family, and the society. It is generally agreed that bilateral congenital cataracts should be removed by 8 weeks of age to achieve the best visual outcomes. Delaying cataract surgery to 10 weeks of age or later increased the likelihood of a 20/100 or worse visual outcome.
Between birth and 14 weeks of age, they noted progressively worse visual outcomes the older a child was at the time of cataract surgery. However, after age 14 weeks until 31 weeks, the visual outcome was independent of the child’s age at the time of cataract surgery. The majority of bilateral congenital or infantile cataracts not associated with a syndrome have no…
