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Departments of Internal Medicine & Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
Cataract is an opacity of the lens in the eye. It can cause blindness when the opacity is complete. It is a slowly occurring process with advancing age. In addition to age, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, sunlight exposure, and metabolic syndrome add to the risk.
Psychotropic Medications and Cataracts
Cataracts appear to occur at an increased frequency with typical antipsychotic medications, especially phenothiazines [1]. The risk is difficult to quantify as cataracts develop over time and drug-related cataracts cannot be distinguished from naturally occurring senile cataracts. There are occasional case reports of cataract formation with haloperidol. Quetiapine carries a manufacturer recommendation to perform routine eye examinations though a causal link is not established. There are no recommendations for managing cataract risk on antipsychotics except possibly for periodic eye examinations.