A Study of the Mechanical Forces on Aphakic Iris-Fixated Intraocular Lenses

Abstract

Iris-fixated aphakic intraocular lenses (IFIOL) are used in cataract surgery when more common intraocular lenses (IOL) cannot be adopted because of the absence of capsular bag support. These lenses can be implanted on either the posterior or the anterior surface of the iris. In this work, we study whether one of these options is preferable over the other from the mechanical point of view. In particular, we focus on the forces that the IFIOL transmits to the iris, which are associated with the risk of lens dislocation. We study the problem numerically and consider aqueous flow induced by saccadic rotations in the cases of an IFIOL in the anterior and posterior sides of the iris. The considered IFIOL is the Artisan Aphakia +30.0 D lens (IFIOL) produced by Ophtec BV. We perform the simulations in openfoam. We find that the forces transmitted by the aphakic IFIOL to the iris are significantly higher in the case of posterior implantation. This suggests that lens implantation on the posterior surface of the iris might be associated with a higher risk of lens dislocation, when an inadequate amount of iris tissue is enclavated during implantation.

Keywords: Biomechanics.