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The effect of cataract surgery on blue–yellow and standard-pattern visual-evoked potentials

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Abstract

Purpose

Blue–yellow visual-evoked potentials (BY-VEPs) may be used for diagnostics of functional ganglion cell damage in glaucoma and other ocular diseases. In this study we investigated the impact of lenticular opacities on BY- and standard pattern reversal VEPs by examining patients before and after cataract surgery.

Methods

Eighteen patients with moderate cataract were included in a prospective study. Transient on/off isoluminant blue–yellow 2° checks were used for short-wavelength stimulation (BY-VEP), transient large 1° (M1) and small 0.25° (M2) black-white checks for standard pattern reversal VEPs. VEPs were acquired before (24 ± 30 days) and after cataract surgery (14 ± 16 days). The contralateral eye was used as a control.

Results

Amplitude and latency of M1 and M2 peaks did not change significantly from before to after surgery. The amplitude of the BY-VEPs did not change significantly after cataract surgery (pre-surgery, −7.42 ± 3.43 μV, post-surgery, −7.93 ± 3.65 μV, p = 0.42), yet the latency of the main negative peak showed a significant decrease (pre-surgery, 143.9 ± 12.9 ms, post-surgery, 133.2 ± 7.7 ms, p = 0.0006). The BCVA improvement was significant from before to after cataract surgery (pre-surgery, 0.344 ± 0.125 LogMAR, post-surgery, 0.224 ± 0.179 LogMAR, p = 0.013) yet not correlated to the absolute decrease in latency of the BY-VEP after surgery (r = 0.309, p = 0.22). No significant changes were found in the contralateral eye.

Conclusions

The BY-VEP is sensitive to lenticular opacities of the human lens, presumably due to the increased short-wavelength absorption in the aging eye. This fact should be considered when applying BY-VEPs for diagnostics.

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Contributors

MF, NP, BM for substantial contributions to conception and design; MF, SJ, HS for acquisition of data; MF, NP, BM for analysis and interpretation of data; MF for drafting the article; MF, PW, NP, GR for revising it critically for important intellectual content; MF, PW, NP, BM for final approval of the version to be published.

Competing interests

None.

Ethics approval

Institutional review board, University Hospital RWTH Aachen.

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This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

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None

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Correspondence to Matthias Fuest.

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Fuest, M., Plange, N., Jamali, S. et al. The effect of cataract surgery on blue–yellow and standard-pattern visual-evoked potentials. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 252, 1831–1837 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-014-2728-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-014-2728-x

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