A survey of anaesthetic preferences in cataract surgery

To identify current trends in anaesthesia technique for cataract surgery and make this information available to ophthalmologists.

An electronic survey was created and distributed to members of online ophthalmology forums; results were subsequently analysed in spreadsheet software.

In total there were 71 completed surveys. The most preferred anaesthesia technique in cataract cases was topical anaesthesia with intracameral injection (n=34, 47.9%), and the least preferred techniques were retrobulbar (n=1, 1.4%) and peribulbar blocks (n=1, 1.4%). The most commonly preferred local anaesthetic was lidocaine 2% (n=41, 57.7%).

Topical anaesthesia techniques with lidocaine 2% appear to be the most preferred method of anaesthesia in cataract surgery in our survey. Compared with previous literature our survey shows that topical anaesthesia is being increasingly used in cataract surgery, especially in conjunction with intracameral injection. The predominant reasons for this seem to be patient comfort and ease of technique.