A study to compare efficacy of subconjunctival anesthesia with lignocaine vs topical paracaine with intracameral lignocaine in small incision cataract surgery in terms of patients cooperation score and surgeon’s comfort

To compare patient cooperation score and surgeon’s comfort between subconjunctival anesthesia vs topical anesthesia with intracameral lignocaine. This is cross sectional observational study involving 72 patients who have been diagnosed to have cataracts in either of the eyes with no underlying complication undergoing small incision cataract surgery in our study, 36 cases were assigned randomly for subconjunctival anesthesia and 36 for topical paracaine with intracameral lignocaine. Small incision Cataract Surgery was done for all the patients. Patients cooperation during the surgery was scored into excellent, good and sufficient cooperation based on patients cooperation score. The two groups were compared in terms of baselined clinical examination variables. : In our cross sectional observational study of 72 cases with 36 in each group, the mean age was 62.83 ± 7.74 years (p=0.085). There were no significant differences between groups in terms of age, sex, operating eye, and complications. The mean patient cooperation score was significantly higher in Group 2 (1.16 ± 0.37) compared to Group 1 (1.77 ± 0.41), with a p-value of 0.00001. In Group 1, 34% showed good cooperation and 66% showed sufficient cooperation, whereas in Group 2, 72% showed good cooperation and 28% showed sufficient cooperation (p < 0.005). The mean surgeon’s comfort score was significantly better in Group 2 (1.02 ± 0.55) compared to Group 1 (1.38 ± 0.71), with a p-value of 0.015.The mean duration of surgery was 25.55 ± 7.35 minutes in Group 1 and 24.02 ± 6.05 minutes in Group 2, with no significant difference (p=0.172). This study showed that patient cooperation score and surgeon’s comfort score was observed to be better in topical with intracameral lignocaine group to subconjunctival anesthesia.