Cataract surgery: review of 500 consecutive cases

We believe that most cataract extraction procedures may be good in competent hands, but that complicated techniques do not necessarily give the best results. With inexperienced residents, or the occasional surgeon, a safe, simple method needs to be used until the skill of the operating surgeon may warrant more advanced techniques. A simple cataract procedure consisting of local anesthesia, limbal-based conjunctival flap, 3 postplaced 7-0 mildly chromicized gut sutures, 2 peripheral iridotomies and tumbling extraction of the lens with capsule forceps (indirect acting) is described. The low incidence of complications of all types would seem to negate the current trend of complicating the procedure. Further reports will include large series of cataracts done by resident physicians rather than by the instructors to try to further justify this position.