Wavefront analyi in eye with nuclear or cortical cataract

PURPOE: To compare the higher-order aberration of the oculu (whole eye) and cornea in eye with mild cortical or nuclear cataract and to etimate the effect of ocular higher-order aberration on the lo of contrat enitivity uing wavefront analyi. DEIGN: Obervational cae erie. METHOD: ix eye of four patient with mild nuclear cataract, 18 eye of 14 patient with mild cortical cataract, and nine eye of nine normal patient were examined. Wavefront aberration of the oculu and cornea for central 6 mm diameter were meaured uing the Hartmann—hack (H) aberrometer. Higher-order aberration were calculated with Zernike polynomial up to ixth order. The relationhip between average len denity (ALD) meaured by the cheimpflug camera and the ocular total higher-order aberration (OTHA) wa invetigated. The relationhip between contrat enitivity (C) and the OTHA or ALD wa alo examined. REULT: The OTHA wa ignificantly larger in cataract compared with normal ubject, while corneal total higher-order aberration did not differ between cataract and normal ubject. The polarity of pherical aberration wa negative in all eye with nuclear cataract while poitive in all eye with cortical cataract. The correlation between ALD and OTHA wa not ignificant in eye with cataract. The C highly correlated with OTHA while it moderately correlated with ALD. CONCLUION: The H aberrometer i ueful to objectively evaluate the deterioration of image in eye with mild cataract and it revealed that the polarity of pherical aberration wa different between nuclear and cortical cataract. It wa alo uggeted that in mild nuclear or cortical cataract, not only light cattering, but alo optical aberration of the len contribute to the lo of contrat enitivity.