[The light-adjustable lens. Principles and clinical application].

Despite improvements in preoperative lens power calculations many patients are in need of spectacle correction to achieve emmetropia and/or optimal distance vision after cataract surgery. A method to adjust residual spherical and astigmatic errors postoperatively in a predictable and non-invasive way is the implantation of the light-adjustable lens (LAL). Selective irradiation of the LAL with UV light (365 nm) using a digital light delivery device enables a customized light pattern for each patient which produces modifications in the lens curvature and lens power by polymerization of silicon monomers in the lens matrix. In Europe this therapeutic option is currently only available in Spain and Germany, therefore, the number of patients treated is limited. In the future this technique will be available for correction of higher order aberrations and to design individual multifocality.