Phaco plus MIGS helps improve quality of life, prevent visual field loss
Key Takeaways
- Studies suggest that cataract surgery combined with minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) improves quality of life and prevents visual field loss in patients with glaucoma.
- Patients should be offered combination procedures to manage high intraocular pressure (IOP) and mild to moderate primary open-angle glaucoma.
Phacoemulsification (phaco) is a surgery used to restore vision in people with cataracts, or clouding of the eye’s lens. This type of cataract surgery uses ultrasonic waves to break the cloudy lens into tiny pieces, which are then suctioned out of the eye with a vacuum. Minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) is a group of procedures used to treat glaucoma that use microscopic-sized equipment and tiny incisions. Many MIGS surgeries can be combined with cataract surgery to treat people with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG).
Steven R. Sarkisian Jr., MD, said at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery meeting that it has been known for a long time that cataract surgery lowers IOP. “But now that we’re in the MIGS space, the MIGS era, there’s a growing consensus — it’s an overwhelming consensus — that phaco-MIGS is preferred to phaco alone in primary open-angle glaucoma,” he said. He shared data from several studies that suggest that phacoemulsification plus MIGS improves quality of life and prevents visual field loss in patients with glaucoma. (Visual field refers to how wide of an area your eye can see when you focus on a central point.) He added that, in contrast to phaco alone, phaco plus MIGS has a sustained effect in lowering IOP.
Sarkisian said the benefit that phaco plus MIGS brings to a patient’s quality of life, as well as the potential to prevent visual field loss, makes it an easy choice over phaco alone. “In patients with treatable ocular hypertension and mild to moderate primary open-angle glaucoma, recommending phaco without offering MIGS is indefensible,” he said.
Edited by Miriam Kaplan, PhD
Source: Alex Young, Healio Ocular Surgery News, April 16, 2024l; see source article