Newton rings on the surface of implanted intraocular lenses.

Using clinical specular microscopy, we studied a postoperative cellular reaction on the anterior surface of implanted artificial intraocular lenses in living human eyes. An amorphous coating filled the spaces between fibroblast-like cells, histiocytes, and foreign body giant cells in 29 of 118 eyes. In most cases the coating was observed as interference fringes (Newton rings). We observed the rings from seven to 63 days after surgery. Clinically, the patients did not show any visual disturbance at the time of these observations. With time, fibroblast-like cells decreased in number. By two months after surgery, most of the cells on the implants had already disappeared.