The diagnosis and management of cataract in animals

Abstract

newline The present study was undertaken to record the regional occurrence of ocular affections and to diagnose and manage the cataracts in animals. The study was done on 2814 animal patients presented to the department of Veterinary Surgery and Radiology, Palampur for over a period of 30 months from April 2015 to September 2017. The incidence of ocular affection in animals was found to be 10.95% in which 76.94% showed singular and 57.79 % bilateral affections. The ocular patients included 235 dogs, 49 bovine, 12 equine and 12 other animal species. Species, sex and age-wise incidences were highest in dogs, males and adults respectively. The corneal (36.26%) and lenticular (14.01%) affections were more common. The incidence of the cataract was 1.71 per cent in all the surgical patients and accounted for 15.58 per cent of ocular disorders. Twenty seven cataract surgeries were performed in different animal species after standardizing the procedure on goat/sheep cadaver eyes. Standard pre and post-operative treatment protocol was used in all uncomplicated clinical cases of cataract surgeries. The small animals were operated under general anaesthesia and the large ones under regional nerve block and sedation. The central eyeball position was achieved by using retrobulbar anaesthesia in 4 dogs and NMBA in 18 with the later proving substantially better. Eyeballs were positioned in front of operating microscope and stabilized with 2-4 stay sutures. The major and minor surgical ports were made as clear corneal incisions at about 10-11 and 2-3 O clock position respectively. Trypan blue dye was used to stain AC satisfactorily and 1 ml of diluted adrenaline (1:10000) was used intra-camerally to augment the mydriasis. Different OVDs were used during surgeries to maintain the shape of anterior chamber and the use of a combination of low and higher viscosity OVDs together proved better. A clean circular capsulotomy of a desirable diameter (5-6 mm) could be performed in twelve cases using CTCC and the IOL could be placed i