The Evolution of Lens Implants

For a long time, ophthalmologists have been seeking the “Holy Grail” of lens implants that can restore “youthful vision,” allowing good sight without glasses at all distances. We haven’t yet reached that target, but there have been some advances. Originally, cataract surgery was mostly about removing the potentially blinding cataract from the patient’s eye without much attention to the need for glasses after surgery. With the advents of lens implants associated with cataract surgery, the need for the patient to wear glasses post-operatively could be adjusted. As the technology of lens implants has improved, we began to offer patients lenses with cataract surgery that helped with both far and near vision (thus reducing the need for glasses at both distances). These lenses were called multifocal lens implants because they focused some of the light from up close sources and some of the light from distant sources. Since the light is always split in terms of focal points, the vision quality is not as good with multifocal lenses as with more traditional lenses. Recently, extended depth-of-focus lenses have hit the market, which don’t focus all the light in any one place either, but rather than providing two distinct focal points, they spread the area from which light is focused. It also seems that the vision quality is slightly better with these extended depth-of-focus lenses compared to multifocal lenses. I am very happy to offer extended depth-of-focus lenses to my patients, and I think they are a nice advance from the multifocal lenses that were previously available.