Limbal relaxing incisions (LRI) for correcting astigmatism in clear corneal cataract surgery

Background: To prevent surgically induced astigmatism following clear corneal cataract surgery. Patients and methods: Limbal relaxing incisions of 6 or 8 mm length respectively and 0.5 mm depth were performed in 52 patients with spheric cornea or astigmatism with the rule of 0.8 +/- 0.3 dpt after temporal corneal cataract incision. The same amount of patients, operated on with the same surgical procedure except keratotomies, served as control. Results: After 6 months the with-the-wound-change (WTW) in the LRI axis using the Hollady method was -0.08 +/- 0.5 dpt in the spheric cases with limbal keratotomy and + 0.5 +/-0.7 dpt in the control cases. The patients with preoperative astigmatism with the rule showed a WTW in the LRI axis of -0.09 +/- 0.5 dpt in the keratotomy cases and + 0.39 +/- 0.7 dpt in the corresponding control patients. Conclusion: Limbal relaxing incision is a reliable and safe procedure to reduce postoperative astigmatism after cataract surgery.