29/06/2016

Author: Grzegorz Łabuz, Rotterdam Ophthalmic Institute, University of Murcia

 Straylight is light scattered due to imperfections of the optics of the eye causing a veil of light over the retina. Although crystalline lens extraction is effective in lowering straylight, some patients experience straylight increase after surgery. As the reason of the observed increase is still unknown, to address this problem, we studied several explanted intraocular lenses that were removed from the eye due to others than straylight reason. We found that some of the routinely explanted lenses showed increased straylight up to a level known to be of functional significance (Fig 1).

Fig 1. Straylight values of explanted intraocular lenses. Three of the explanted lenses showed straylight levels well below the level of a young crystalline lens (green dashed line). Two of the studied lenses showed straylight close to that of the crystalline lens at age 70 (red dashed line).

The results of this study were presented and discussed with the scientific community at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) meeting in Seattle, USA.