Changing operating room practices: the effect on postoperative endophthalmitis rates following cataract surgery
Reviewed by Jonathan Chan

This is a retrospective clinical registry study from India of 85,552 cataract surgery patients; group 1 (56,551 patients from January-March 2020) and group 2 (29,011 patients from May-August 2020). Group 1’s patients were ungowned, surgical gloves were disinfected but not changed between cases, the operating room (OR) floor was not cleaned between cases and multiple patients underwent preparation and surgery in the same OR. Group 2’s patients were gowned, surgical gloves were changed between cases, the OR floors and counters were cleaned between patients and only one patient underwent preparation and surgery in the OR at a time. Three eyes (0.005%) in Group 1 and two eyes (0.006%) in Group 2 developed postoperative endophthalmitis (POE) (p=0.77). There was no difference in posterior capsular rupture rate between the two groups. The authors concluded that these results challenge the necessity of these common practices which may be needlessly costly and wasteful, and the revaluation of empiric and potentially unnecessary guidelines that govern ophthalmic surgeries is necessary.

Changing operating room practices: the effect on postoperative endophthalmitis rates following cataract surgery.
Haripriya A, Ravindran RD, Robin AL, et al.
THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF OPHTHALMOLOGY
2023;107(6):780-5.