Surgically induced astigmatism of small incision cataract surgery.

I would like to congratulate the authors who contributed the article “Comparison of astigmatism following manual small incision cataract surgery: superior versus temporal approach,” which was published in Nepal J Ophthalmol 2012; 4(7):54-58. As one who follows new discussions in the field of cataract and refractive surgery with great interest, I absolutely agree with the authors that the research topic is extremely relevant, particularly among cataract surgeons of the developing world. I found the introduction and discussion sections clearly structured, and the study methodology to be well formulated. However, I would like to draw the authors’ attention to several major concerns outlined below: 1. A table or a figure should be self-explanatory. When presented alone, as in this article, both table titles (captions) do not provide sufficient information for readers to understand the main conclusions that can be drawn from the table. 2. The conclusion is a summary statement of the results that should strongly correspond to the stated objective of the paper. However, in this paper, the author’s conclusions are not supported by the data. The authors conclude that the stability of SIA was better when temporal approach SICS was used. On what basis could the authors conclude that one method is more stable than the other when data from only one visit was presented for each? Stability of the astigmatism can be defined as a function of time; however, the change in SIA over time (i.e. at each follow up visits) is not mentioned in the paper. Moreover, the authors conclude that preand post-operative complications are the same in both approaches. However, the paper did not analyse the surgical complications, nor was it stated as an objective of the study. I would like to advise the Editorial Board to correct errors to eliminate the confusions among the readers.