[European Cataract Outcome Study--results of five years of participation]

To inform about European Cataract Outcome Study and to publish results from the Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty Hospital in Hradec Králové achieved during the five years' participation. METHOD, GROUPS: European Cataract Outcome Study is an international multicentric study pursuing quality of cataract surgery in individual departments of European countries. Its goal is to monitor the development of new trends and to be helpful in setting standards using the collected data. The Study evaluates results of all surgeries performed during one month. Our department participated in it in the years 1998-2002. In the first part of the trial the basic demographic data as well as the course of the surgeries were followed, in the second part results of examination during the first six months after the surgery were collected.

Operations are mostly performed by means of the facoemulsification method in local anesthesia (subconjunctival or parabulbar), the stay in hospital varies in individual years between 35.1% and 56%, the percentage of implanted foldable (soft) intraocular lenses rises every year, in 2002 up to 61.5% (average of the whole study was 78.2% in 2002), the percentage of posterior lens capsule rupture during the procedure during the five year period in our department descends (range 3.7% to 1.2%). In the referred groups, 40.4% to 50.5% of eyes suffered from still another disease. The best corrected visual acuity 0.6 or better after the surgery achieved in individual years 64% to 78%. The deviation from planed refraction is between 0.69 to 0.88 diopters. The induced postoperative astigmatism varied in followed periods from 0.49 to 0.69 cylindrical diopters.

The results of the study shows that the quality of surgeries performed in the department is on the high level and is fully comparable with contemporary European standard.