PURPOSES: Compare the visual acuity of patients who underwent cataract surgery by phacoemulsification with IOL AcrySof® toric implantation versus AcrySof® IQ and evaluate the reduction of cylindrical diopters (CD) in the postoperative period. METHODS: Analytical and retrospective study of 149 eyes with 1 or more diopters of regular symmetrical keratometric astigmatism, which underwent cataract surgery by phacoemulsification. The eyes were divided into two groups: the toric group with 85 eyes and the non-toric group with 64 eyes. In the pre-operative phase, topographic data and refraction of each eye to be operated were assessed. In the postoperative phase, refraction and visual acuity with and without correction were measured. RESULTS: The preoperative topographic astigmatism ranged from 1.00 to 5.6 DC in both groups. Average reduction of 1.37 CD (p<0.001) and 0.16 CD (p=0.057) was obtained for the toric and non-toric group when compared to the refractive astigmatism, respectively. Considering visual acuity without correction (NCVA), the toric group presented 44 eyes (51.7%) with NCVA of 0 logMAR (20/20) or 0.1 logMAR (20/25) and the toric group presented 7 eyes (10.93%) with these same NCVA values. DISCUSSION: The results show that patients with a significant keratometric astigmatism presented visual benefits with the toric IOL implantation. The reduction of the use of optical aids may be obtained provided aberrations of the human eye are corrected more accurately. Currently, phacoemulsification surgery has been used not only for functional improvement, but also as a refraction procedure.
Astigmatism; Intraocular lens implantation; Phacoemulsification; Cataract extraction; Visual acuity
