title: Aqueous flare is increased in patients with clinically significant cystoid macular oedema after cataract surgery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To analyse the relationship of clinically significant cystoid macular oedema (CME after phacoemulsification to blood-aqueous barrier breakdown as determined by aqueous flare, visual acuity and retinal thickness in optical coherence tomography (OCT).
  
  
  METHODS
  30 eyes of 30 consecutive patients with clinically significant CME and vision loss were included. 46 pseudophakic and 45 phakic eyes without CME served as controls. Clinical data included age, gender, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and spectral domain OCT volume scans. Retinal thickness measuring of the foveal central subfield was determined. Aqueous flare was measured quantitatively with the Kowa FM-500 Laser Flare-Cell Meter.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients with CME had significantly higher flare values compared with pseudophakic patients (p<0.0001). For patients with CME, aqueous flare values correlated significantly with BCVA (Spearman rs=0.4, p=0.041), while there was no correlation with retinal thickness. Using flare values to predict CME, receiver operating characteristic analysis returned an area under the curve of 0.976.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Aqueous flare as a marker for inflammation and breakdown of the blood-retinal barrier is increased in patients with CME after cataract surgery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Lebriz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ersoy
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caramoy
authors.forename: Tina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ristau
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kirchhof
authors.forename: Sascha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fauser
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001082:Aqueous Humor / Q000378:metabolism*; D018916:Blood-Aqueous Barrier; D003941:Diagnostic Techniques, Ophthalmological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000378:metabolism*; D008269:Macular Edema / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D018918:Phacoemulsification / Q000009:adverse effects*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D019591:Pseudophakia / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism*; D012160:Retina / Q000473:pathology; D012307:Risk Factors; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence; D014792:Visual Acuity / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Aqueous humour; Lens and zonules; Retina