Good results with light-adjustable IOL in a traumatized, post-LASIK eye

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report on the use of a light-adjustable IOL in a complex situation involving post-LASIK flap trauma with resultant traumatic cataract. The results were encouraging and point to a potential new approach to dealing with postoperative refraction.

A 36-year-old man presented with a UDVA of 20/160 in the left eye. He had undergone bilateral LASIK in April 1999. Several months after surgery, he experienced a work-related injury that resulted in trauma to the left corneal flap. After repair of the flap, he developed an elevated IOP over the following few years and visual acuity in the left eye did not recover.

The patient underwent cataract extraction with light-adjustable IOL implantation. Following adjustments and lock-ins, he achieved an end refraction of +0.50, producing a UDVA of 20/20.

The authors write that the light-adjustable IOL may represent a new approach to refractive predictability in the postrefractive eye. They say that rather than focusing on developing more accurate IOL formulas, perhaps the solution is to accept that initial postoperative refraction will not be ideal and tweak it using the light-adjustable IOL.

They conclude that this case illustrates that it is possible to achieve good refractive results with the light-adjustable IOL in a post-LASIK patient.