title: Indications for cataract surgery.
abstract: This review article will attempt to guide ophthalmologists in deciding the indications for cataract surgery. It will consider this year's visual function questionnaires, ancillary vision tests, and postoperative outcome measures to assess visual function. Cultural factors, age, and gender are a few of the confounding variables in trying to assess visual function. The indications for cataract surgery in the 21st century have evolved dramatically since cataract surgery was first performed in the 1700s. The physicians' dictum in the Hippocratic oath of "do no harm" has determined the indications for cataract surgery over time. Today, doing no harm means operating on cataracts earlier than previously, as this is technically easier than in previous years, when poorer surgical techniques prevailed. However, are we operating on cataracts too early? This review will attempt to highlight the relevant factors that will help to determine the indications for cataract surgery.
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Department of Ophthalmology, Montreal Children's Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. rsuperstein@hotmail.com
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Superstein
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D001334:Automobile Driving; D002386:Cataract / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D002387:Cataract Extraction; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D006801:Humans; D012737:Sex Factors; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D014792:Visual Acuity / Q000502:physiology