In this study, we investigated the visual outcomes of ICB00, a newly developed monofocal IOL with an extended depth of focus, and those of the standard monofocal IOL 1 month after cataract surgery in patients with retinal disease. According to this study, when using ICB00, even in patients with cataract and retinal disease, intermediate vision was significantly improved compared to that with the standard monofocal IOL from a relatively early time point of 1 month after surgery. In addition, there was no impairment in distant vision improvement compared to that with the standard monofocal IOL.
The importance of intermediate distance vision can be easily overlooked; however, from the patient's point of view, intermediate distance visual acuity is considered very important for daily life. Numerous instances of modern everyday life involve intermediate vision, such as viewing a tablet, computer monitor, or car dashboard or performing sports activity.9 Therefore, in modern daily life, where these activities have been increasingly performed, patients’ demands for intermediate vision after cataract surgery have also been increasing.
ICB00, which was recently developed to improve intermediate vision, extends the depth of focus of refractive IOL that uses a modified aspheric design to increase negative aberration and achieve a larger depth of focus compared to the standard monofocal IOL.17 This modified aspheric design creates a continuous power profile (the power increases continuously from the periphery to the center of the lens), which extends the depth of focus, thus improving vision for intermediate tasks. This unique anterior surface and a thickness difference of 1.5 microns with a diameter of nearly 2 mm in the optical center increases the power by 0.5 D.18 Furthermore, it is based on the refractive technology, without diffractive rings and without zones.6 With this theoretical background, ICB00 has been evaluated as an IOL for cataract surgery suitable for the living environment of modern people in a number of previous clinical studies.2, 6, 19–21 In our study, we compared this ICB00 with AAB00 (standard monofocal) IOL in cataract patients with retinal disorders. These two types of IOLs are biconvex monofocal one-piece IOLs from the same manufacturer. The have the same overall diameter, optic diameter, materials, refractive index, edge design, and haptic style, except the anterior surface design.12
Currently, it is accepted without controversy that cataract surgery using the standard monofocal IOL helps improve visual acuity in patients with retinal diseases such as maculopathy and diabetic retinopathy.22 However, a multifocal IOL is contraindicated in patients with several retinal diseases that have already reduced contrast sensitivity, especially maculopathy, diabetic retinopathy, and retinal dystrophy, because there is an additional decrease in contrast sensitivity after cataract surgery with a multifocal IOL.23 Further, in the case of multifocal IOL, when IOL decentration occurs, high-order aberration increases and objective contrast discrimination diminishes.24 Additionally, multifocal IOL may cause a photic phenomenon, which may cause a major problem in image quality in patients with retinal disease.25–27 Therefore, patients with retinal disease did not have a suitable alternative to improve their near-to-intermediate vision after cataract surgery in an era when near-to-intermediate vision is important. However, the newly developed ICB00 has a monofocal design with no demarcation line, and it is theoretically considered that the decrease in contrast sensitivity, increase in spherical aberration, and occurrence of photic phenomenon are less with this IOL than the multifocal IOL, and such results have been reported in several clinical studies.19, 28 Therefore, ICB00 is expected to be widely used in patients with cataract and other ophthalmic diseases, including retinal disease.
It is important to identify whether there is any deterioration in distance vision when using ICB00 compared to using standard monofocal IOL during cataract surgery in patients with retinal disease. All previous studies included patients with only cataract without other ophthalmic disease.2, 19–21 In this study on patients with retinal disease, ICB00 was not different from the standard monofocal IOL in terms of distant vision, but showed better results in terms of intermediate vision. These results suggest that patients with cataract and retinal disease can also expect to benefit from an improved quality of life through the improvement of intermediate vision. Along with distant and intermediate visual acuity improvement after surgery, there was no photic phenomenon such as halo and glare in cataract patients with retinal disorder.
The strength of our study is that it is the first study to investigate the effect of monofocal IOL enhanced for intermediate vision in patients with cataract and other ophthalmic diseases. However, our study has the following limitations. (1) The present study has a retrospective design with selection bias as well as a small number of subjects. In addition, 7 different types of retinal lesions were analyzed together, so caution is needed in interpreting the results. (2) This study did not investigate the subjective satisfaction6 of patients after surgery. (3) Before and after surgery, pupil size, contrast sensitivity, high-order aberration, and visual quality other than visual acuity could not be evaluated because of the lack of related instrument. For more accurate results, a prospective study with longer observation period and large number of participants evaluating optical quality and patient satisfaction is warranted.
In conclusion, in this study on patients with cataract and retinal disease, ICB00, a newly developed monofocal IOL with an extended depth of focus, showed better intermediate visual acuity results, with no difference in distant vision, than the standard monofocal IOL. Although the use of ICB00 may have limitations in near vision, it is expected to be of great benefit to patients with retinal diseases who want to improve their vision through cataract surgery by enhancing intermediate vision, which is widely used in modern life. If the indications of ICB00 can be widened through additional studies, it will help to increase the quality of life of patients with retinal diseases.