ABSTRACT

ULTRASMALL INCISION CATARACT SURGERY AND IMPLANTATION OF ROLLABLE LENSES

THE FUTURE CHALLENGES

BACKGROUND

At the beginning of the 21st century, modern cataract-intraocular lens (IOL) surgery has become one of the safest, most successful, and most frequently performed outpatient surgeries in the industrialized world including North America.1-6 In former times, when anesthesia and fine surgical instrumentation were beyond conception, the cataractous lens was dislocated into the vitreous (couching) (Fig. 57.1). Thanks to considerable advancement in microsurgical techniques modern cataract surgery can be performed using sub-1mm incision and history reaches a full circle with reports of no-anesthesia cataract surgery.7-9 In this chapter, we attempted to summarize major evolutionary advancements of surgical techniques and IOL designs/biomaterials for cataract surgery. However, it is almost impossible to provide details of each and every evolution.