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Quality-of-life questionnaires may indicate multifocal IOL performance
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 Jorge Alió |
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Accurate assessment of IOL outcomes should be obtained by evaluating quality of life through validated questionnaires such as the NEI VFQ, according to a speaker here.
"Medicine aims at improving people's lives, and in ophthalmology, this aim is achieved through an improvement of vision," Jorge Alió, MD, said at the winter meeting of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons. "We should measure our success based on the patients' perception that our surgery and the lenses we have implanted have positively modified their lives."
Multifocal IOLs aim at improving near vision, but sometimes at the cost of decreasing quality of far vision in contrast sensitivity loss, halos, glare and decreased best corrected visual acuity, according to Dr. Alió. Such an impact on visual quality is likely to impact patient satisfaction.
Several quality-of-life-based studies, including a prospective study performed by Dr. Alió and colleagues, have shown that the most widely used multifocal IOLs may promote high patient satisfaction, with significant quality of life improvement in a high percentage of patients.
However, problems with patient satisfaction are still found in 14% to 18% of patients, leading to a high explantation rate, he said.
- Disclosure: No products or companies are mentioned that would require financial disclosure.