Corneal astigmatism and HOAs affect IOL performance

Uncorrected corneal astigmatism and higher-order aberrations (HOAs) in pseudophakic eyes significantly affects through-focus performance of presbyopia-correcting IOLs.

Dr Len Zhelezynak and his team, Flaum Eye Institute, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA, conducted an experimental study on the impact of corneal aberrations on the through-focus image quality of presbyopia-correcting IOLs using an adaptive optics IOL metrology system.

The device was used to induce corneal astigmatism and HOAs and the image-capturing system acquired through-focus images of a letter chart with 3.0 mm and 5.0 mm pupil diameters.

A single-optic accommodating IOL, an apodized diffractive multifocal IOL, a full-aperture diffractive multifocal IOL and a monofocal IOL were assessed. The correlation-coefficient image-quality metric was used to quantify image quality.

The single-optic accommodating IOL produced a better intermediate image quality, compared to the monofocal IOL. Corneal astigmatism reduced the through-focus quality and depth of focus with all IOLs, but the multifocal IOL had the more significant reduction in depth of focus.

The abstract is available in the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.