Intraindividual comparison of color contrast sensitivity in patients with clear and blue-light-filtering intraocular lenses
Accepted 18 December 2007.
Purpose
To evaluate the effect of blue-light-filtering intraocular lenses (IOLs) with a yellow chromophore on color contrast sensitivity by intraindividual comparison with an identically designed IOL without a blue-light filter.
Setting
Medical University of Vienna, Department of Ophthalmology, Vienna, Austria.
Methods
Randomized implantation of an AF-1 (UV) IOL (Hoya) in 1 eye and an AF-1 (UY) IOL (Hoya) in the contralateral eye was performed after phacoemulsification and primary posterior curvilinear capsulorhexis. Three months postoperatively, the best distance-corrected visual acuity was evaluated. Before color contrast sensitivity testing, a heterochromatic flicker test was performed in both eyes to avoid error in brightness matching. Central and peripheral tritan color contrast sensitivities were evaluated using the Moorfields Vision System (CH Electronics).
Results
Visual acuity did not differ significantly between the 2 IOL groups (P>.05). The central color contrast sensitivity threshold also did not differ significantly between eyes with a clear IOL and eyes with a yellow IOL at any tested spatial frequency. The peripheral color contrast sensitivity test showed slightly higher color contrast sensitivity thresholds in eyes with a yellow IOL, although the differences were not statistically significant. Two patients independently reported subjective changes in color perception in the eye with the yellow IOL.
Conclusion
In this intraindividual comparison, the implantation of a blue-light-filtering IOL did not lead to a clinically significant change in color contrast sensitivity.
Department of Ophthalmology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Corresponding author: Gerald Schmidinger, MD, Department of Ophthalmology, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
No author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.
Presented at the XXIV Congress of the European Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgeons, London, United Kingdom, September 2006.
ABSTRACT