iOR Partners, LLC announced the findings of a study on office-based ophthalmic surgery safety has been published in the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
Refresh me on the company first.
As the only company focused solely on providing office-based surgery (OBS) suites in the United States, iOR Partners has working relationships with practices across the country. Its iOR surgical suites are designed to provide cataract surgeons with the tools to offer more personalized care along with a turnkey solution that includes:
- Space build-out
- Surgical equipment acquisition
- Staff training
- Insurance acquisition
- Accreditation
- Compliance services
How would you define an office-based surgery center?
Unlike ambulatory surgery centers (ASC), which are facilities where surgeries are performed that do not require hospital admission, an office-based lens surgery center is a nationally accredited operating room located within an ophthalmic practice.
Now talk about this study.
Led by Lance J. Kugler, MD, founder and Physician CEO of Kugler Vision in Omaha, NE, and iOR Partners’ medical director, the retrospective, multicenter study—titled “Safety of Office-Based Lens Surgery: a U.S. Multicenter Study”—assessed case records of 18,005 consecutive patients (across 36 U.S. locations from August 2020 to May 2022) who received office-based lens surgery for either:
- Visually significant cataract surgery (74.1%)
- Refractive lens exchange (RLE) (24.8%)
- Phakic intraocular (IOL) implantation (2.1%)
What was patient selection based on?
Per the study, patients were selected based on the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status classification system:
- ASA I & II→ Patients were determined adequate for surgery at an office-based facility.
- ASA III → Patients were selected for surgery on a case-by-case basis, as per a physician’s decision.
- ASA IV → Patients were deemed inappropriate for office-based surgery.
Of note, 54% of the study population was 65+ years of age, with a majority having comorbidities typical within a cataract surgery population.
Further, according to iOR Partners, younger patients included in the study underwent RLE.
What was measured?
Two outcome measures were analyzed: intra- and postoperative complications following lens surgery.
These included:
- Unplanned vitrectomy (anterior or posterior)
- Iritis
- Corneal edema
- Endophthalmitis
And the findings?
Per the study, the following rates were observed for postoperative:
- Endophthalmitis (0.028%)
- Toxic anterior segment syndrome (TASS) (0.022%)
- Corneal edema (0.027%)
Anything else?
According to investigators, 0.177% of patients received unplanned anterior vitrectomy.
Additionally, 0.067% of patients returned to the operating room and 0.11% of patients were referred to a hospital.
So what does this mean?
The study authors concluded that the comparison of adverse event rates for cataract or refractive lens OBS is on par to or even less than that of reported AE rates for cataract surgery performed in an ASC setting.
(And see here for up-to-date data from the iOR Real-World Data (iRWD) Registry on ophthalmic OBSs).
And the bigger picture?
According to iOR Partners CEO James Williams, recent trends have suggested a shift from ASCs to OBS suites as a new standard for ophthalmic surgery in the next decade.
Williams stated that, for eye surgeons considering adding OBS to their practice, “This study provides surgeons with the safety data and transparency they need” to ensure its safety for patients.