Ocular Pathologies in Children and Adolescents: Cataracts

Pediatric cataracts are one of the most common causes of visual impairment in children. A cataract is due to cloudiness in the crystalline lens. The lens is the part of the eye that helps focus light images onto the retina. The retina translates the information to nerve fibers and sends it to the brain for processing. If the lens is cloudy from a cataract, the image will be blurred and thus vision will be affected. The cloudiness in a cataract is due to the accumulation of protein crystals in the lens. The human lens consists of three main types of proteins that are very tightly packed together: α-, β-, and γ-crystalline [1]. The tight packaging of these proteins limits the amount of light scattering and thus creates a clear lens. If the proteins are altered it can increase space between the proteins and therefore increase light scattering, which causes cataracts.