Comparison of macular pigment optical density between phakic and pseudophakic eyes

Background: Cataract surgery has been an independent risk factor in the development and progression of age-related macular degeneration. Understanding the relationship between cataract surgery and Macular Pigment Optical Density (MPOD) will be helpful for the prevention of this degeneration during follow-up. The present study is aimed to evaluate effectiveness of lens status and postoperative period over MPOD. Method: Patients were divided into 2 groups, including phakic cases that have transparent natural lens and pseudophakic cases that had undergone cataract surgery at least a year prior. MPOD values were measured by a heterochromatic flicker photometric method and assessed for each group. Results: Sixty eyes of 31 cases were enrolled in the study. As group-1 included 30 eyes of 15 phakic cases; group 2 included 30 eyes of 16 pseudophakic cases. The mean MPOD values were 0.572 ± 128 and 0.549 ± 219 in groups 1 and 2, respectively. The mean MPOD values of phakic and pseudophakic patients were statistically similar (p>0.05). However, the MPOD values and duration of postoperative period of the patients in group-2 showed a significant negative correlation (r=-0.443, p<0.05). Conclusion: The outcome of macular pigment optical density was similar in both phakic and pseudophakic eyes. Although an inverse correlation exists between the duration of the postoperative period after cataract surgery and MPOD values, our results supports that cataract surgery has no potential effects on macular degeneration at least done for a year