Tear Osmolarity During the First Postoperative Month After Cataract Surgery

The purpose of this study was to evaluate tear osmolarity changes in a healthy ocular surface in an eye that had been operated on within the first month after cataract surgery. This aim was achieved by forming two groups from the included patients. Patients with one eye exposed to cataract surgery formed the study group, while the eyes of the same patients with no cataract surgery were set as the control group. Both the operated and non-operated eye of each patient were scanned before surgery, the following morning, one week and one month after surgery. Tear osmolarity did not differ between the groups before the operation. On the first day after the surgery, tear osmolarity significantly decreased, below the detection range of the TearLab device (< 275 mOsm/l). The osmolarity level in the control group did not change. One week after surgery, osmolarity in the study group increased to 312.64 mOsm/l, which was significantly different from that of the control group. One month after surgery, tear osmolarity in the study group had returned to the pre-operative level. Tear osmolarity is thus clearly affected by cataract surgery. The average values were seen to change quite significantly during the first postoperative month.