Shearing posterior chamber intraocular lenses: five-year postoperative results.

Long-term follow-up data for 424 patients with an IOLAB Shearing J-loop posterior chamber intraocular lens are presented. One hundred sixty-eight patients were given a complete ophthalmologic exam at five years (59 to 69 months) after surgery. Charts of the remaining 256 patients were reviewed for the most recent visit data. Ten surgeons contributed patients to this follow-up study. Results indicate that 91.5% of the patients in the five-year exam group obtained a visual acuity of 20/40 or better at one year after surgery and 89.3% obtained this visual acuity at five years after surgery, thus showing only a decrease of two percentage points over time. If patients with preoperative pathology or macular degeneration are excluded, the percentage of patients seeing 20/40 or better at five years is 94.0%. Few of the complications observed at five years are implant-related; macular degeneration is the primary condition causing vision worse than 20/40. No macular edema and few corneal problems were observed at five years. Endothelial cell counts were obtained for 53 of the 168 patients examined at five years and averaged 1,947 cells/mm2. The rate of lens dislocation is low, and no clinical evidence of degradation or failure of the polypropylene haptics was noted.