Eyeworld

EW CATARACT June 2011 31 home messages here. "The first is we need to do more studies in this age group," Dr. Greenberg said. "Nona- genarians are a growing part of our cataract surgery population, and we need to find out more informa- tion about them." Specifically, Dr. Greenberg would like to find out how they're selected for surgery and if it's true that the healthier ones are the ones who are being picked. "The study tells us more about the characteristics of the nonagenar- ians who are having surgery," Dr. Greenberg said. "I think that it makes us more aware of the kinds of patients that we will be seeing." Dr. Greenberg sees the study as offering a typical profile of the 90- to 99- year-old patients who are undergo- ing cataract surgery at the VA. "Generally VA patients are sicker than non-VA patients undergoing cataract surgery," he said. "We need to look at nonagenarians undergo- ing cataract surgery outside the VA, in fee-for-service settings for exam- ple, and see how they compare with patients in this study." If anything, he sees the numbers here as perhaps a bit conservative because the VA pa- tients tend to be sicker. "Outcomes may be even better in patients who are healthier," he said. Overall, Dr. Greenberg sees the study as offering an idea of the kinds of complications that are occurring in patients who are 90 and above. He also stressed that more research is ultimately needed in this cohort of patients. EW Editors' note: Dr. Greenberg has no re- lated professional affiliations. Contact information Greenberg: paul_greenberg@brown.edu Cataract surgery 90-something style: Saying yes to cataract surgery for nonagenarians Poll Size: 1020 May 2011 over for cataract surgery. Still, he sees the study as offering some im- portant information. "Once some- one who is 90 or above has decided to have cataract surgery, we can give him or her a better idea of what the complication rate will be," he said. He sees two important take- EyeWorld Monthly Pulse EyeWorld Monthly Pulse is a monthly reader pulse on trends and patterns for the practicing ophthalmologist. Each month we send a short 4-6 question online survey covering different topics so our readers can see how they compare to our survey. If you would like to join the current 1000+ phyicians who take a minute a month to share their views, please send us an email and we will add your name. Email: ksalerni@eyeworld.org and put EW Pulse in the subject line; that's all it takes. Copyright EyeWorld 2011

• Cover