OBJECTIVES: Our objective was to describe patient characteristics and real-world treatment patterns among age-related cataract patients in diverse healthcare delivery settings in the United States.

METHODS: Patients from 2 specialty ophthalmology networks and 2 integrated delivery networks within the OMNY Health Database with any indication of age-related cataract (diagnosis code: H25*) from 2017-2022 were included. Demographic characteristics were tabulated for each patient. Percentages of patients with procedures for any of the following first and second-line surgical treatment classes were computed: standard extracapsular cataract extraction (SECE; procedural code 66984), complex extracapsular cataract extraction (CECE; procedural code 66982), and other.

RESULTS: Across 2017-2022, a total of 329,724 age-related cataract patients and 3,406,671 associated encounters were included. Distributions of gender (55% female), race (92% White, 5% Black, 3% Other among known categories), age (4% < 50 years, 83% 50 – 79 years, 8% > 80 years) were as expected. A total of 90,506 patients underwent a total of 153,186 cataract procedures. SECE was the most common procedure observed, accounting for 142,714 (93%) of procedures. CECE accounted for 9,941 (6%) of procedures, while other procedural codes (66840, 66850, 66983, among others) accounted for 531 (0.3%) of procedures.

CONCLUSIONS: Results provide insights into real-world treatment patterns for age-related cataract within a diverse set of US healthcare settings. SECE was by far the most common procedure. As new treatments are developed and introduced, future analyses would be helpful to understand treatment patterns among age-related cataract patients.