implantable contact lense ICL for Cataract
Are you fed up of using high numbered glasses and at the same time, do not enjoy wearing soft contact lenses, then you can be a good candiate for ICL- Implantable Collamer lense.
For cataract patients tired of reading glasses dangling from chains around their necks, there’s a new option in ophthalmology offices: multi-focal, implantable lenses that enable both near and distant vision.
But some Baltimore ophthalmologists caution the lenses, on the market only for a matter of months. Implanted in place of the natural lens to correct cataracts, the multi-focal lenses act as bifocals inside the eye, providing several images - both distant and near - and leaving the brain to choose which one to see, which it often does with little trouble.
Many people in their 40s begin to experience blurred vision when viewing near images because of a loss of flexibility in the lens - a phenomenon called presbyopia, which makes glasses necessary to see clearly up close, said local ophthalmologist Dr. Brett Katzen of Towson’s Katzen Eye Group.
When doctors remove the natural lens to correct the cataract, which is a clouding, darkening and hardening of the lens, they can implant one of the new lenses to correct the patient’s vision altogether, clearing the murky vision and rendering reading glasses unnecessary, Katzen said.
The lenses, sold by several companies in the United States, were approved by the Food and Drug Administration just last spring. Katzen uses one called AcrySof ReSTOR IOL (intraocular lens), made by Alcon Laboratories of Fort Worth, Texas. Another is sold by Advanced Medical Optics Inc., of Santa Ana, Calif. In the dozen or so surgeries in which he’s used the devices since the spring, Dr. Katzen said he’s had excellent results.
People get annoyed [when] every time they want to read they have to go find their glasses, he said. A lot of people get very frustrated with this. For those patients, this gives them the freedom of being able to see near without having to go find their glasses. Katzen said he even is willing to use the lens to correct presbyopia alone, without cataracts. The lenses are not FDA- approved for that purpose, but doctors still can use them for that treatment. But other Baltimore ophthalmologists urge conservative use of the lenses. Dr. Walter Stark of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins said he won’t touch them just yet.
It’s not that much different from a regular lens, he insisted. The companies that manufacture the devices are trying to get doctors to say that you need this. But the older, mono-focal lens technology is fantastic, for no additional cost, argued Stark, Wilmer’s director of cataract and corneal transplant services. Plus, in the FDA trials, about 25 percent of patients using the new lenses reported nighttime glare, compared to about 9 percent of mono-focal lens patients.
I’m not sure, said Stark of the technology. He hasn’t used it so far in his patients. The current technology is so good, 99.9 percent of my patients are extremely happy. Most, he said, are left only slightly nearsighted - they can see to drive or to read medium-sized print, but to sit down with a novel they have to grab their glasses.
Dr. Don Abrams, chair of Sinai Hospital’s ophthalmology department, said his concern is for the patients who experience trouble discerning which image to see, near or distant. Implanting the new lenses requires doctors to carefully screen patients based on intangibles such as how demanding they are about their vision or what their personality is like. A lot of people love it, he said of the multi-focal lens technology. But I have some questions in my own mind whether or not I would ultimately use it.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
IOL are very effective and you don’t have to face the problem of having to place on contacts every morning. It has also been a solution with patients with cataracts. There are complications that can arise.