Prevalence of Macular Abnormalities Identified Only on Optical Coherence Tomography in Korean Patients Scheduled for Cataract Surgery

Purpose: To assess the prevalence of macular abnormalities identified only on macular optical coherence tomography (OCT)which were not suspected by biomicroscopic fundus examination, and examine the clinical outcome of patients with thesemacular abnormalities during preoperative evaluation for cataract surgery in a large series of Korean patients. Methods: Macular OCT was performed on patients scheduled for routine cataract surgery by the same physician at SeoulSt. Mary’s Hospital, between June 2018 and November 2019. The patients’ medical records were reviewed retrospectively toobtain demographic data and the results of preoperative evaluation before cataract surgery. Patients were divided into twogroups based on the preoperative macular OCT results: normal and abnormal OCT groups. Results: Nine hundred eighty-seven eyes (698 patients) were included in this study. Macular OCT identified abnormalitiesin 44 eyes (4.5%) of 35 patients (5.0%). Twenty-one eyes (2.1%) had age-related macular degeneration, 20 eyes (2.0%) hadepiretinal membrane, and three eyes (0.3%) had lamellar hole. Patients with macular abnormalities identified on macular OCThad a statistically significant higher mean age than those who had normal OCT findings (p < 0.001). Best-corrected visual acuitywas worse in patients with abnormal macular OCT after cataract surgery (p = 0.048). Conclusions: In the preoperative evaluation for cataract surgery in Korean patients, one in every 20 patients had macular abnormalitiesidentified only on macular OCT in spite of unremarkable macular findings on biomicroscopic funduscopy. Age wassignificantly higher in patients with abnormal macular OCT findings. Thus, inclusion of macular OCT examination in preoperativescreening before routine cataract surgery would be beneficial.