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Vision with ‘aberration-free’ IOL satisfies patients, surgeon says
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WASHINGTON — An IOL designed to induce no spherical aberration in the eye has produced good visual results in patients in a preliminary study, according to a speaker here.
In a preliminary study of the Bausch & Lomb SofPort AO IOL in 105 patients, 97% of patients were happy with their visual outcome after surgery, said Louis D. Nichamin, MD, at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery meeting.
“These patients reported as good or better than expected visual results,” Dr. Nichamin said.
Additionally, in a subset of 49 patients who were implanted with the SofPort in one eye and a conventional IOL in the fellow eye, most patients preferred the visual performance of the eye implanted with the SofPort lens, he said.
“[Other] aspheric IOLs induce negative spherical aberration to cancel out the positive spherical aberration in the eye,” he said. “But the SofPort AO Aspheric lens is aberration-free. It’s a neutral lens that doesn’t impart any asphericity.”
While a small amount of spherical aberration in the eye can be beneficial to vision by improving depth perception, Dr. Nichamin said, excessive spherical aberration can disrupt quality of vision. Standard IOLs have been found to induce positive spherical aberration (in addition to the spherical aberration that is naturally occurring in the eye). To counteract this effect, aspheric IOLs with negative spherical aberration were developed, Dr. Nichamin said. A lens with neutral spherical aberration, such as the SofPort AO, may provide similar benefit, he noted.
To “see if this technology really works,” Dr. Nichamin has begun enrollment in a 12-month randomized trial to compare the efficacy of the SofPort lens to other aspheric IOLs currently on the market.