Revolutionary Artiflex Lens Corrects High Cylinder and Strength
Eye surgery replacing glasses continues to develop. There is a growing number of options for those who want to get rid of their glasses or contact lenses. The lens producer Ophtec in The Netherlands has a global first: an Artiflex implant lens for people with a high cylinder deviation. Renowned ophthalmologists have called this a revolutionary development.
Looking into a distorting mirror and seeing only tall, thin people walking past may be funny for a while. But if your eyes are playing this trick on you all the time, the fun soon wears off. This misrepresentation is caused by the fact that the cornea no longer has the even, spherical shape of a football, but has taken on a more oval shape, like that of a rugby ball. This deviation, which is usually less serious than described above, is known as astigmatism or cylinder.
Ophtec has recently introduced a flexible cylinder-correcting implant lens, the Toric Artiflex Lens, which corrects astigmatism as well as (severe) short-sightedness. The lens is the latest in a series of unique, patented, ultra thin Artisan and Artiflex lenses, sold all over the world, which have been developed by Ophtec in Groningen since 1986 to improve (severe) short-sightedness, long-sightedness and cylinder deviations. They are placed in the eye in front of the person's own lens and attached with two small clips, after which they remain in the eye permanently.
According to prominent eye surgeons, who call the lens a revolutionary development, all the advances of the previous lenses are integrated in this Toric Artiflex Lens. Another plus point is that the lens is "foldable", which means that only a very small cut has to be made in the eye to insert the lens. Stitching is no longer necessary, and the small wound heals quickly. As the diameter of this lens can be slightly longer than that of non-foldable ones, it is suitable for a larger number of wearers of glasses and contact lenses. In addition to correcting severe short-sightedness, the lens corrects a cylinder of up to -5, which is almost impossible to achieve with glasses.
Some 22,000 operations to replace glasses are carried out annually in the Netherlands nowadays, which includes 2,000 lens implants. There is a huge demand for this new toric lens, which was presented only recently at the conference of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ESCRS) in Barcelona, Spain: the lens is already being sold and implanted all over the world.
