"The disappearing lens": failure of CT to image the lens in traumatic intumescent cataract.

The CT scans of three patients whose eyes were lacerated by trauma failed to demonstrate the lens. A slit-lamp examination of those eyes clearly indicated that the lenses were present behind the iris but that they were swollen and opaque (intumescent cataract). Apparently, a shift of water into the injured lens had reduced the expected hyperdense CT image of the lens to a level that it was no longer discernible.