Cataract surgery lowers intraocular pressure and medication use in the Medication Group of the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study.

Abstract Purpose To determine the change in intraocular pressure (IOP), ocular hypotensive medication use after cataract extraction in the Medication Group of the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study (OHTS). Design Secondary analysis of randomized clinical trial data Methods We included 92 participants (n=149 eyes) of the OHTS Medication Group who underwent cataract surgery in at least one eye during the study, and 531 participants (n=1004 eyes) of the Medication Group who did not undergo cataract surgery. We defined the “split date” as the first study visit that cataract surgery was reported for the cataract surgery group, and the 15th visit in the control group to equalize the median number of visits. We then compared the two groups at visits relative to this split date. Main outcome measures Difference in preoperative and postoperative IOP, and number of classes of ocular hypotensive medications between the cataract and control group over a 72 month period. Results Cataract surgery significantly decreased the number of ocular hypotensive medications at all postoperative visits (mean -0.4 medications, p Conclusions Cataract surgery in ocular hypertension patients produced sustained reductions in the average number of ocular hypotensive medications and transient reductions in intraocular pressure.