Macular optical coherence tomography for screening of pathology prior to cataract surgery: An approach based on tele-evaluation

Background To assess the benefit of macular spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) as a part of the routinary preoperative study of patients undergoing cataract surgery. Methods A prospective single-center study study was performed. Consecutive patients with normal biomicroscopic funduscopy, moderate cataract and no history of ophthalmological pathologies were enrolled. All patients underwent macular SD-OCT. The obtained images were analysed by a general ophthalmologist and two retina specialists. Incidence of macular pathology and its relation to age and comorbidities were assessed. Results Eight-hundred and thirty-six eyes of 419 patients were enrolled in this study. All images were analysed telematically by a general ophthalmologist. Forty-nine eyes were excluded due to insufficient quality of the obtained images. Abnormal images were observed in 156 eyes (18.6%), including age-related macular degeneration in 68 (8.2%), epiretinal membrane (ERM) in 67 (8.0%), cystoid macular edema in 3 eyes (0.4%), among others. Diagnostics with severe impact on patient visual prognosis were observed in 16 eyes (3.82%) from 12 patients. The relationship between incidence of macular pathologies and age or comorbidities was not statistically significant. To assess accuracy of the first observer, images were subsequently analysed by two retinologists. The kappa index of concordance was 0.80 and 0.85. Conclusions Implementing a systematic macular SD-OCT as a preoperative test prior to cataract surgery would improve quality of postoperative visual prognosis information. A general ophthalmologist would be suitable to screen for pathology through macular OCT images.