PGI doctor uses new technique to treat children of cataract

CHANDIGARH: Using a new technique with no extra cost involved, Dr Jaspreet Sukhija, an ophthalmologist at the PGI, has started operating children suffering from cataract. The surgery helps these children overcome serious complications, including damaging of the optic nerves.

Dr Sukhija was awarded with the Hanumantha Reddy award for the best Paediatric Ophthalmology paper at the recently concluded All-India Ophthalmology Society conference in Indore.

The national conference had 1,880 submissions from all over the country.

Dr Sukhija, additional professor at the Advanced Eye Centre, PGI, has done a research on cataract surgery in children. He has performed surgeries using a modified surgical technique and compared it with the conventional surgical procedure.

In his technique of cataract, the vitreous in the posterior part of the eye is not touched and the intraocular lens is placed behind the posterior capsule and fixed with posterior capsule unlike the conventional surgery where the intraocular lens can rotate and rub with the iris. The conventional surgery also leaves a lot of empty spaces which allows for proliferation of lens epithelial cells, whereas, the modified technique ensures a sealed compartment resulting in all these cells being trapped and no risk of visual axis obscuration-a complication of paediatric cataract surgery.

These observations have been made over a long period of follow up of two years post-surgery. This technique helps in preserving the structures of the eye and at the same time minimises the risk of lazy eye and possible glaucomatous damage.

“This is for the first time that any such study has been performed where conventional procedure has been done in one eye and an improvised technique has been used in the other eye of children with bilateral cataract,” said Dr Sukhija. PGI sees more than 30 such cases a week.