Polarized glasses may help in symptomatic cases of intraocular lens glistenings

Abstract

Intraocular lens (IOL) glistening is a relatively common phenomenon. Although most of the patients remain asymptomatic, a small percentage of patients can develop unwanted optical side effects. We report 6 symptomatic patients with IOL glistening. All patients underwent an implantation of a hydrophobic acrylic mononofocal, multifocal or toric IOL in external clinics for visually significant cataract at least 6 months prior. Patients had very reasonable corrected visual acuity (0.8–1.0 decimal), but significantly had reduced contrast sensitivity and modulation transfer function, complained of visual phenomena and expressed dissatisfaction with their visual status. Patients indicated the symptoms were not present immediately after surgery, but gradually developed postoperatively. Slit-lamp examination revealed moderate-to-severe glistening in all cases. No other pathology that would be responsible for the visual symptoms was present. Patients reported improvement in side effects with the use of edge filter (blue-light blocking) eyeglasses and polarized sunglasses with an increase in contrast sensitivity by aproximately 1 line on Pelli–Robson chart. The use of specific eyewear seems to be a promising alternative to avoid explant of an IOL in symptomatic patients with glistenings and very good visual acuity. In conclusion, we believe that long-term optical clarity is crucial for the choice of an IOL.

Keywords:

• glistenings
• intraocular lenses
• quality of vision

Ethics

This retrospective study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and of the Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards and used only de-identified patient data. All patients signed an informed consent document. For this type of study, using de-identified data and without clinical intervention, no ethical approval is required in our institution.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.