Cataract screening

Thanks to the retro illumination image , we are able to see the lens opacity. A cataract is a cloudy or opaque area in the normally clear lens of the eye. Depending upon its size and location, it can interfere with normal vision. Most cataracts develop in people over age 55, but they occasionally occur in infants and young children. Usually cataracts develop in both eyes, but one may be worse than the other.

You see in the right eye a lens opacity, certainly a cataract. In the left eye the natural lens is still transparent , there is no cataract in this eye.

A cortical cataract is characterized by white, wedge-like opacities that start in the periphery of the lens and work their way to the center in a spoke-like fashion. This type of cataract occurs in the lens cortex, which is the part of the lens that surrounds the central nucleus.

The Lens Opacities Classification System, version II (LOCS II) Uses retro illumination transparencies to grade different degrees of nuclear, cortical, and subcapsular cataract. The LOCS II can be used to grade patients’ cataracts  to grade slit-lamp and retro illumination photographs; it is easy to learn and can be applied consistently by different observers.