Can A Cataract Come Back?

What is a secondary cataract?

As a cataract surgeon and ophthalmologist in Traverse City, MI I’m often asked “do cataracts come back?” In a word, no. During cataract surgery the cataract, which is the natural lens in the eye, is removed and cannot come back. However, an eye can develop a “secondary cataract” after cataract surgery. Ophthalmologists and optometrists refer to this secondary cataract as a “posterior capsule opacification (PCO)”.

During modern cataract surgery, your surgeon will remove the cataract from your eye but leave it’s surrounding capsule intact inside your eye (except for the very front part). This is a large part of what makes cataract surgery so delicate. It is inside this preserved capsule that your eye surgeon will place the artificial lens (IOL) used to give you good vision again.

Over the few weeks to months following surgery, the capsule will “shrink wrap” the artificial lens. During this process the capsule can wrinkle behind the lens and in some cases grow a film, this is from leftover “cataract cells” that can reproliferate. In fact, this film can grow even years after the original cataract surgery.

The growth of a secondary cataract or PCO can make it feel like the cataract is coming back by causing symptoms of blurriness and/or light scatter and glare. Fortunately, a secondary cataract can be treated in an ophthalmologist’s office using a YAG laser to “clean off” the cloudy capsule during a laser capsulotomy. This laser is painless and less involved than the original cataract surgery, and there are no limitations following the laser surgery.