Intraocular Lenses
Intraocular lenses (IOLs) that take the place of the eye’s natural lens have been hugely beneficial to cataract patients, with more than one million implanted each year in the United States. Since the 1970s, when intraocular lenses found widespread acceptance, intraocular lens technology has advanced significantly. A wide variety of IOLs have hit the market to help patients achieve more flexibility in their vision.
Advances in Intraocular Lenses
From the introduction of intraocular lenses, manufacturers have moved from an inflexible lens material that necessitated larger incisions to acrylic and silicon, which comprise the majority of IOLs placed today. The use of these materials allows the lens to remain soft and pliable so that ophthalmologists can make tiny incisions in which to insert the lens and then unroll it into the eye.
Now, more than ever, you and your doctor have choices in intraocular lenses. Our Baltimore area ophthalmologists at Katzen Eye Group can examine your eyes and help determine which of these intraocular lenses best suits your vision needs:
- Multifocal Lenses – offering variable distance viewing with greater possibility that glasses or contacts will not be needed. ReZoom™ and ReStor® provide clear vision at all distances and offer greater freedom from eyewear than previous IOLs.
- Toric IOLs – reduces or eliminates corneal astigmatism and greatly improves distance vision without the need for corrective lenses. The Staar Surgical IOL and the AcrySof® IQ Toric IOL will help the blurriness at all distances often caused by an ovoid corneal shape.
- Accommodating IOLs – offers focusing from near to far, far to near and in distances between
- Aspheric IOLs – traditional IOLs are spheric, but this lens is slightly flatter to provide better contrast sensitivity
- Filtering IOLs – offers blue light and ultraviolet (UV) light filtering that your natural lens had before it was replaced with an IOL
- Monofocal Lenses – the traditional type of IOL offering vision at only one distance that can be augmented by the use of glasses or contacts.
Please contact the ophthalmologists at Katzen Eye Group in Baltimore and Lutherville, Maryland who specialize in intraocular lens placement, if you want to begin seeing more clearly.
