Benefits, Complications & Risks

The benefit is to improve your clarity of vision and colour vision. As with all surgical procedures, there is a small element of risks associated with your operation. Some of these can be serious.  The success of the operation also depends on whether you have any pre-existing eye conditions. The potential complications during the operation are:

•  Severe Bleeding inside the eye during operation, which may cause loss of vision
• A tear   in the capsule with disturbance of the gel inside the eye that sometimes leads to reduced vision
• Loss of all or part of the cataract into the back of the eye, which requires another operation often requiring a general anaesthetic
• Allergic reaction to local anaesthetics.

The potential complications after the operation are:

• Bruising of the eye or eyelids
• High pressure inside the eye
• Clouding of the cornea
• Swelling of the retina (macular oedema)
• Detached retina that can lead to loss of vision
• Infection (endopthalmitis)- which can lead to loss of sight or, on very rare occasions, loss of the eye

The risk of total loss of vision  is about 1 to 3 in 1000.