In a study designed to compare the visual and refractive outcomes of the Visian ICL and Verisyse Phakic IOL refractive surgery procedures, researchers have found that both implantable lenses are effective in correcting moderate to large amounts of myopia, but the Visian ICL appears to produce better visual acuity.
Implantable lenses often preferred by refractive surgeons for the correction of high myopia and for myopic patients who are not good candidates for LASIK or other laser vision correction procedures.
Visian ICL vs. Verisyse Phakic IOL: Study design
The study evaluated 61 consecutive phakic lens implantation procedures performed on the eyes of 35 patients for the correction of -6.00 to -20.00 diopters (D) of myopia.
The Visian ICL was implanted in 30 eyes of 16 patients, and the Verisyse Phakic IOL was implanted in 31 eyes of 19 patients. Members of each group were matched for age and amount of pre-operative myopia.
Outcomes measured three months after surgery included:
- Uncorrected visual acuity with one eye (monocular UCVA)
- Uncorrected visual acuity with both eyes (binocular UCVA)*
- Best spectacle-corrected visual acuity (BSCVA) with both eyes
*Binocular uncorrected visual acuity was measured only for patients who had surgery performed on both eyes (87 percent).
Adverse events occurring during or after surgery were also noted in the study.
Visian ICL vs. Verisyse Phakic IOL: Results
At three months after surgery, among those receiving the Visian ICL:
- 67 percent had monocular UCVA of 20/20 or better
- 96 percent had monocular UCVA of 20/25 or better
- 92 percent had binocular UCVA of 20/20 or better
- 100 percent had binocular UCVA of 20/25 or better
Among those receiving the Verisyse Phakic IOL:
- 63 percent had monocular UCVA of 20/20 or better
- 79 percent had monocular UCVA of 20/25 or better
- 70 percent had binocular UCVA of 20/20 or better
- 80 percent had binocular UCVA of 20/25 or better
Also, 50 percent of patients in the Visian ICL group gained at least one line of BSCVA three months after surgery (compared to pre-operative levels), whereas only 22 percent in the Verisyse Phakic IOL group had similar gains.
Adverse events occurred in 13 percent of cases in the Visian ICL group, including trace cataracts (6.6 percent), halos (3.3 percent) and the need for a follow-up surgery to exchange the implantable lens (3.3 percent).
Among the Verisyse Phakic IOL group, adverse events occurred in 19 percent of cases and included a foreign body sensation due to loose sutures (16 percent) and dry eye (3.3 percent).
Conclusions
The researchers concluded that though both the Visian ICL and Verisyse Phakic IOL are effective for the correction of moderate and high myopia, the Visian ICL appears to produce better overall visual acuity three months after surgery.
SOURCE: Comparison of the Visian ICL and Verisyse Phakic Intraocular Lenses for myopia from 6.00 to 20.00 diopters. Journal of Refractive Surgery. September 2009.