Cataract surgery in the setting of angle closure glaucoma is very challenging because the anterior chamber is very shallow, the iris may be ischemic, the pupil will be small, and there could already be underlying optic nerve damage to limit the post-op vision. Cataract surgery is also very helpful in cases of narrow angle glaucoma or angle closure glaucoma since we remove the 4-5mm thick human lens (the cataract) and replace it with a man-made lens (the IOL) which is about 1 mm thin. This allows the narrow angle to instantly widen to a normal, wide open angle and it makes the anterior chamber deep. This video shows our guest surgeon’s approach to performing cataract surgery in the setting of angle closure glaucoma. I am certain that you will learn a lot of valuable lessons from this video.
