The aim of this research is to describe correlation between urea concentration in the serum and aqueous humor and development of age related cataract.
This is a cross sectional analytical study conducted in the departments of Ophthalmology and internal medicine, Assiut University. patients with age related cortical cataract who are otherwise healthy (cases) and two control groups; first systemically healthy subjects with ocular diseases other than cataract and a second control group of patients with impaired renal functions and are not on dialysis treatment and thus have elevated serum urea levels were included. Slit lamp examination was performed to evaluate crystalline lens for opacities. Measurement of serum urea was done for all study subjects. Aqueous humor urea concentration was done only for the group of patients who are planned to have intraocular surge
A significantly higher urea concentration was found in the group with clear lenses (P= 0.035) compared to subjects who have cortical cataracts. Even if we look at healthy people alone and exclude the group of uremic patients, a significantly higher serum urea level was also found in patients with clear lens (p=0.028). Aqueous humor levels of urea were found to be correlated with serum urea levels (r= 0.78). Our data shows that a significantly lower urea concentration is found in serum and aqueous humor of patients who have cataracts compared to patients who don't have cataract.