Practice patterns of Canadian Ophthalmological Society members in cataract surgery--2010 survey.

OBJECTIVE

To establish the cataract surgery practice patterns of the members of the Canadian Ophthalmological Society (COS).

STUDY DESIGN

Web-based questionnaire.

METHODS

In January 2010, an email with a link to SurveyMonkey was sent from the COS office to its 305 members who had indicated their practice focus is cataract surgery. A reminder email was sent 2 weeks later. All responses were collected anonymously.

RESULTS

There was a 32.5% response rate (99 responses), compared with 20.7% in 2009. Two respondents volunteered that they no longer performed cataract surgery and 1 response was incomplete; therefore, 96 responses were analyzed. The results of the 2010 survey were compared to those of the 2009 survey.

CONCLUSIONS

While the majority of the practice patterns analyzed were unchanged between the 2009 and 2010 surveys, there appears to be a trend to start nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug eye drops earlier preoperatively and an increase in the use of one-piece hydrophobic acrylic, aspheric, and blue-blocking intraocular lenses. The use of the fourth generation fluoroquinolone antibiotic gatifloxacin has increased at the expense of older antibiotics.