Materials and methods: The medical records of patients with congenital cataract who had reliable preoperative fVEP recordings were reviewed. The fVEP was recorded prior to lensectomy and anterior vitrectomy. The N2 and P2 latencies and P2 amplitudes were evaluated. The preoperative and postoperative patients? characteristics including qualitative visual performance evaluation and accompanying ocular and systemic problems were recorded.

Results: Thirty-one eyes of 17 children were enrolled in the study. Three patients underwent unilateral surgery. The mean age of surgery was 6.76±5.69 months (2-24). Preoperative ophthalmological evaluation of the patients revealed no fi xational ocular movement. The mean preoperative N2 latency was 92.46±19.91 ms, P2 latency was 123.72±25.69 ms and P2 amplitude was 7.49±4.98 ?V. Seven patients had systemic diseases. Nine (52.9%) patients had nystagmus preoperatively. There was no signifi cant difference of N2 and P2 latencies and P2 amplitudes among patients with and without systemic diseases (p>0.05 for all). All patients experienced fi xational eye movements and voluntarily directed saccades postoperatively.

Conclusion: Preoperative fVEP recording, albeit prone to recording diffi culties, may be a valuable test in the assessment of visual function but low amplitudes and delayed latencies seem not to predict worse visual outcome and should not affect surgical decision. Keywords : Cataract; congenital cataract; fl ash VEP; visual evoked potentials; visual function