Deferring Postoperative Follow‑Up Visits up to 4 Weeks After Uneventful Cataract Surgery in a Tertiary Level Eye Hospital: Protocol for a Prospective, Quantitative, Experimental Control Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Routine examination after cataract surgery, including a refraction test 4 to 6 weeks after surgery, is mandatory in most hospitals. In recent years, there has been growing interest in exploring alternative approaches to postoperative follow-up in cataract surgery patients due to the increasing number of cataract surgeries being performed, the limited availability of health care resources, and the need to optimize the use of health care services. OBJECTIVE: We aim to compare postoperative visual outcomes after a day 0 examination in patients with 2 follow‑ups, one on day 7 and other on day 30, and patients with a single ophthalmic follow‑up between days 25 to 30. METHODS: A prospective, quantitative, experimental control study will be carried out in Reiyukai Eiko Masunaga Eye Hospital, located in Banepa, Kavrepalanchok, Nepal. All patients undergoing cataract surgery meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria irrespective of the type of surgery (small-incision cataract surgery or phacoemulsification) will be included in the study. The patients will be randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups. Patients in group 1 will be examined on day 1, day 7, and day 30, whereas patients in group 2 will be examined on day 1 and once between days 25 to 30. The minimum clinically important difference (MCID) in our study will be set according to the improvement in the Snellen visual acuity chart. RESULTS: The study is expected to be completed within 6 to 8 months from the start of the project. Data analysis and report writing will be carried out in a 2-month period. Best-corrected visual acuity will be compared between the 2 groups to determine if the MCID is achieved. The cost-effectiveness of the new approach will also be analyzed. CONCLUSIONS: We aim to conclude that we can safely defer the 1-week postoperative follow-up visit in patients undergoing uncomplicated cataract surgery and that, moreover, we can reduce the patient load at the hospital and decrease patient expenses by decreasing the frequency of hospital visits. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/48616.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.030 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.019 | 0.005 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".