Infectious Endophthalmitis Following Sutureless Cataract Surgery

To the Editor.  —We read with great interest the case report by Hessburg et al¹ and the article by Stonecipher et al² in the November 1991 issue of the Archives regarding infectious endophthalmitis following sutureless cataract surgery. These reports prompted us to conduct a "straw poll" of four other surgeons who, along with us, have taught courses on sutureless cataract surgery. The following findings have been noted in a telephone conversation with Harry Grabow, MD, Robert G. Martin, MD, Paul Ernest, MD, and Michael McFarland, MD (March 1992).In a series of 27181 consecutive sutureless cataract surgeries, four cases of endophthalmitis (one of 6795) have been noted, an incidence of 0.015%. This incidence of infection is dramatically lower than the 0.13% (one of 800) incidence following extracapsular cataract extraction or phacoemulsification reported by Javitt et al³ and the 0.067% (one of 1500) incidence following extracapsular cataract extraction