Posterior Capsule Rupture

In the August 2023 edition of the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Dr. Tomas Bro and colleagues published a review about cataract surgeries in Sweden from 1992 to 2021.

One of the measures they tracked was posterior capsule rupture rate. When a cataract surgery is done, the typical procedure involves placing a replacement lens inside the capsule. Prior to that, the cataract its removed from its capsule to allow space for the replacement lens.

Unfortunately, if the back of the capsule is broken, i.e. the posterior capsule is ruptured, the capsule can’t hold a lens implant the way it normally would. Therefore, this is a very commonly tracked complication of surgery.

From the early 1990s to the 2020s, the rate of rupture decreased from 2.8% to 0.6%–almost five times better. It is this steady progress and overall low rate of complications that makes me think that cataract surgery is the best thing that we do in medicine.