Cataracts can be seen innew born babies or small children and require urgent attention.various reasons are known as causative agents for childhood cataracts

Treatment Options

For a child less than 6-7 months simple removal of cataract with lensectomy and correction with glasses or contact lenses is the treatment of choice.

However in children older than 7 months a personalized decision to implant intra ocular lens is taken based on size of eyeball & associated defects like coloboma, microcornea etc.

In children older than 18-24 months intraocular lenses are implanted with good results.

A meticulous follow up and careful change in glasses along with pathching of eye is needed for an excellent outcome.

Raised intra ocular pressure causing damage to the nerve of eye causing permanent loss of vision is known in adults and is one of the major blinding diseases. This disease can affect a new born or a child. Commonly it is diagnosed due to

Treatment Options

1. Medical treatment :-In form of drops to control pressure temporarily till the child is fit for surgery
2. Surgical treatment:-Operations like trabeculotomy+trabeculectomy offer success to the time of 85% .but requires multiple surgeries sometimes and use of drops after surgery in many occasions.
3. For non responding cases. other options like valve implants,laser cyclophotocoagulation are used.

Child with childhood glaucoma needs early and continued treatment and may bring failures also sometimes.

However children who continue to have watering beyond 9 month of age need to undergo a small surgery call open this blocked probing .to open this block in the duct. Children beyond 1.1/2 yrs to 2 yrs have less success rate of this operation and need an additional procedure of silicon intubation.where in a silicon tube is connected from eye to nose and kept for 3 months in place. this operation offers 95% success rate. Dr. Killedar has done pioneering efforts in India to start and propagate this operation and bring down the cost with indigenous tools.

sometimes It is familial i.e. occurring in those whose mother /father either have it or carry it although saving of life is most of the times possible the newer modalities of treatment like chemoreduction , EBRT, laser therapy have potential to save the eye and save the vision also.

In India children (1-12 yr of age) in preschool and school going group have 5% occurrence of need to wear glasses. Where as in countries like Singapore, hongkong,japan this percentage is 60%.

A child holding things too close, watching TV from very close distance should be taken to eye specialist for eye checkup every child’s vision should be checked before 4 th birthday to avoid many eye problems. Myopia(-minus number) in children tend to grow with age and usually stops growing by 19yrs in girls and21-23 yrs in boys .till then they need yearly checkups and use of glasses.

Although a lot of things have been tried to stop this growth non is proved to be assured to stop the growth. after stability operation like LASIK give excellent results and freedom of glasses.

Hyperopia (+plus number) in children tends to reduce with age and stabilizes by 19-23 yrs numbers up to 6 D can also be successfully treated by LASIK often this age.