AUG 05, 2011
Cataract/Anterior Segment
This study's authors retrospectively analyzed the effects of IOL material on optical quality in pseudophakic eyes with a hydrophobic or hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lens (IOL) and a clear posterior capsule. They found that hydrophobic acrylic IOLs provide better low-contrast visual acuity and speculate that this is due to increased opalescence of hydrophilic IOLs caused by higher water content.
They used point spread function (PSF), modulation transfer function and Strehl ratio using the double-pass technique to assess 46 subjects (28 eyes with hydrophilic IOLs, 43 with hydrophobic IOLs) in two ongoing studies who were at least three months postoperative. Eyes with hydrophilic acrylic IOLs were found to have significantly lower 9% logMAR corrected distance visual acuity (P = 0.000) and significantly higher 10% and 50% PSF values (P = 0.005 and 0.008, respectively). The authors also studied the forward light-scattering properties of the IOLs in vitro and found that they were higher in eyes with hydrophilic acrylic IOLs, although they were low in both groups.
They conclude that IOL material is an important factor in determining the optical quality of vision with different acrylic IOLs.