Angle-supported phakic IOLs still a viable option, if precautions taken

BERLIN — Angle-supported phakic IOLs are still a viable means of correcting high refractive error, but precautions must be taken.

"Success or failure depends on a careful preoperative evaluation," Georges Baikoff, MD, said at the ESCRS meeting here.

Measurements of the eye must be precise he suggested, while white-to-white measurement should be abandoned and replaced by more modern systems of visualization. Another important element to take into account is that the anterior chamber is not a circle, but an oval.

"The two haptics of the lens should be fixed where the diameter is larger, so the lens can be oblique rather than horizontal in quite a few cases," he noted.

Finally, the crystalline lens rise must be introduced as a new safety criterion.

"The crystalline lens moves forward as the eye gets older, and of course moves forward during accommodation. This variable has to be taken into account to avoid surprises," he pointed out.