Is a third anesthesia necessary following bilateral cataract surgery in children?

When operating on bilateral pediatric cataracts, surgeons have performed retinoscopy and contact-lens fitting for the second eye during a third anesthesia or in the office. We evaluated the concordance between eyes for retinoscopy, intraocular pressure, corneal diameter, and base curve in 13 cases. The correlation coefficient was significant (P less than .01), which justifies ordering contact lenses for both eyes after an evaluation of the first eye. Bilateral contact lenses will hasten the treatment or prevention of amblyopia and usually will eliminate the need for a third anesthesia.