Even with severe ARMD vision is usually helpfully improved with cataract surgery when the amount of cataract present has a significantly greater impact on vision compared with the ARMD itself. So the presence of ARMD doesn’t always mean cataract surgery is not worthwhile. Even if the ARMD is severe and the chance of seeing letters on the chart after slim, sometimes cataract surgery is worth doing to improve peripheral vision or to allow continued monitoring of the eye.

It used to be thought that cataract surgery might cause ARMD to get worse, but later studies have concluded that this is not so.