Prevalence of Corneal Astigmatism before Cataract Surgery in Yazd Province, Iran

Purpose: To analyze the prevalence and presentation patterns of corneal astigmatism in cataract surgery candidates in Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Patients and Methods: Refractive and keratometric values from 400 eyes of 365 patients were measured before surgery in patients having cataract extraction. Descriptive statistics of refractive and keratometric cylinder data were analyzed and correlated by age ranges. Results: Our data showed that 22.8 % of patients had less than 1 D of corneal astigmatism,12.9 % had 1 - 1.5 D, 21 % had 1.5 - 2 D and 9.3 % had more than 2 D of corneal astigmatism, so among all patients, astig-matism of 0.0 to 1.00 D was the most common cylinder value (22.8 %). Conclusion: Our study showed that 43.2 % of preoperative cataract surgery eyes in Yazd have a corneal astigmatism of 1.0 D or more, indicating that better surgical techniques or using Toric IOLs are needed to achieve better visual rehabilitation.