IOLs

Since time immemorial the cataract operation has been done, and archaeological remains have been found in Egyptian excavations. The cataract operation is an operation that was done when the patient practically saw nothing. Then it consisted, in one way or another, in removing the lens. When removing the crystalline lens, which is where the cataract is formed, we also removed the lens of the eye, so that all the cataract patients had to wear glasses of a very strong graduation, of fourteen or fifteen diopters, when the glasses existed.

Subsequently, it had always been thought to replace the lens by some lens or by some type of adaptation inside the eye. Until the Second World War, which was Ridley, an English ophthalmologist, who proved that the RAF pilots who were injured with cockpit wounds, that it was plastic, with pieces of plastic inside the eye and tolerated this plastic perfectly and it happened to him to make a lens of this same plastic. That lens was made, which was Ridley's lens, which was the first lens that was implanted inside an eye but for reasons of sterility and weight of this lens it ended up leaving.

Later on, and after the eighties, intraocular lenses began to be made that were perfectly tolerated. These lenses have evolved a lot and lately they are not only used to replace the cataractous lens, say, that has a cataract, but they are also used to correct other defects, to correct myopia, astigmatism, hyperopia and lately four or five years ago there are also multifocal lenses. These multifocal lenses can leave without glasses for far and near. This is the origin of intraocular lenses. An intraocular lens has a maximum of 13 millimeters in diameter and this is 13 centimeters, but it is this aspect and this way with these flexible optics it adapts to the inner capsule.

Thanks to the implantation of intraocular lenses there are numerous pathologies that can be corrected. As we said before, myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, the latter with new lenses that have come out that are called toric lenses and correct the astigmatism perfectly. Currently with these new biometrics that are made by means of the laser we achieve an almost perfect lens in its graduation for the patient, with which we can correct the myopia to which it wants to correct its myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. In this we must take into account that some myopic, especially two or three diopters prefer to remain a little short-sighted because the vision that the nearsighted person has when taking off his glasses is very good and many times this must be taken into account in the patient's history because each lens must be adapted to what the patient prefers, to his profession, to his hobbies or to his exercises that he does after the implantation of the lens.

What advantages do they offer for the patient?

The main advantage that the intraocular lenses offer for the patient is not having to use those diopters so large that they were used in the past when they did not wear the intraocular lenses. In addition, the advantage they offer to the patient is the current intervention technique of cataract that is only with topical anesthesia, that is, with drops, which is very short, in expert hands is from fifteen to twenty minutes, which is done without give points and that is also done in a traveling way, that is, the patient should not enter. He operates and goes home with his eye uncovered, he does not cover his eye at any time and practically enters his normal life, except violent exercises and other types of things that can not be done, but the next day he can be doing his normal activity