Management of coincident glaucoma and cataract

Cataract and glaucoma are two very common conditions that frequently are coincident within the same patient. The surgical treatment of the patient with both cataract and glaucoma has changed considerably in the era of small-incision cataract surgery. Additionally, many surgeons are employing antimetabolites routinely in combined phacoemulsification and trabeculectomy. This article reviews the literature as it pertains to combined cataract and glaucoma surgery within the 1-year scanning period. This is not a comprehensive review in that many very important articles are excluded because they were published either before or after the scanning period. The important topics included within this article involve the use of mitomycin C in combined surgery, the comparison of combined phacoemulsification and combined standard extracapsular procedures, long-term results of combined cataract and glaucoma surgery, the survival of filtration blebs after cataract extraction in eyes that had previous trabeculectomy, new techniques of combined surgery including clear corneal cataract extraction combined with trabeculectomy, and the effect of phacoemulsification on intraocular pressure in patients with and without glaucoma.