Sir,

Thanking Dr Shankar for his interest in our study, we agree with him that the number of patients included in our study is too small to draw firm conclusions about the safety of cataract surgery after intravitreal injection of triamcinolone acetonide.1 It was the purpose of the study to report about complications occurring during or after cataract surgery following intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide therapy. Since the intravitreal injection of triamcinolone acetonide has just recently been introduced into clinical ophthalmology, it may be important to have early reports about the importance of side effects of this new therapy. Since development or progression of cataract is a common side effect of intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide, and because the study did not reveal a markedly elevated rate of complications of cataract surgery following intravitreal tiramcinolone acetonide, we concluded, that based on the data available so far, the cataractogenic side effect of triamcinolone acetonide may not be a major contraindication against the intravitreal application of triamcinolone acetonide. When more patients may have received intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide for treatment of intraocular oedematous, proliferative, or neovascular diseases, future studies on larger number of patients may address the question of safety of cataract surgery following intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide.