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Holy grail of accommodating IOLs not far off, speaker says
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CHICAGO — Devices that allow patients to have good distance, intermediate and near vision with no loss of contrast, halos and nighttime issues are not far away, a speaker said here.
“The holy grail is getting close,” Jack T. Holladay, MD, MSEE, FACS, said at the Ophthalmology Innovation Summit preceding the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery meeting. Such accommodating IOLs, however, are just part of the unmet needs related to cataract and refractive surgery.
The overall cataract surgery market is growing, he said, partially due to improvements in technology that cause more people to seek treatment and partially due to the number of aging baby boomers.
Dr. Holladay predicted femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery would be the predominant form of cataract surgery within 5 years due to the certainty and consistency of the procedure.
In addition, he lauded the improvement of newer IOL calculation formulas, predicting they would continue to improve and allow for more precise decisions by surgeons and better results for patients.
But the possibility of IOLs that Dr. Holladay said would use an electric charge to adjust themselves by up to 3 D may represent the holy grail of true accommodation.
The batteries of the lens would be able to charge by the user wearing a specially designed sleep mask for several hours at night. Failure to use the mask would result in loss of near vision until the lens is charged, he said.
Testing of such a device in humans is expected in April 2013, Dr. Holladay said.
- Disclosure: Dr. Holladay is a consultant for Abbott Medical Optics, AcuFocus, Allergan, Nidek, Oculus, WaveTec Vision Systems and Zeiss Certified.