IOL And Lasik Comparisons
For nearly 10 years laser eye surgery - LASIK - has been the rage among most folks who had their sights set on clear vision without a need for glasses or contacts.
Now there's something even newer: implantable intraocular lenses, or IOL. Approved in September 2005 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, this form of refractive eye surgery may prove the next hot trend.
The implantable lens, also known as the implantable contact lens, isn't for everyone and is so new some specialists haven't yet been trained in the procedure.
Others have adopted a "watch and wait" attitude. While one type of lens has been approved, more devices are awaiting approval or coming down the research "pipeline" - not just for nearsightedness, but farsightedness and astigmatism, too. "It fills a real need, said Dr. James L. Davidian, a Corona ophthalmologist and clinical assistant professor of ophthalmology at Loma Linda University School of Medicine, who does mostly cataract surgery.But I don't see it as ever being a large part of a refractive surgery practice." In fact the implantable lens is for people with moderate to severe nearsightedness (myopia), especially those not even state-of-the-art LASIK can help. Implantable lenses are extremely helpful with people whose myopia is too extreme for LASIK. Both procedures alter how light beams enter the eye to allow sharper focus - LASIK by reshaping the cornea, the eye's clear outer covering, and implantable lenses by serving as contact lenses worn "inside" the eye itself. In IOL, the lens is very similar to the plastic lens used to replace the cloudy natural lens removed in cataract operations. It's called a phakic IOL, a term that means the eye still has its natural crystalline lens.
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