Vaulted posterior chamber lenses and the posterior capsule

Sixty-eight patients who had extracapsular cataract surgery with intraocular lens implantation in the bag received one of two types of lenses that had been designed to create a gap between the posterior surface of the optic and the posterior capsule. Two to four months after surgery, we found that the central spacing between the posterior lens surface and the posterior capsule measured by optical pachymetry averaged 0.25 mm. The mean of the spacing for the Pharmacia LSP laser ridge was 0.25 mm (range 0.1 to 0.6) and that of the 3M LE meniscus lens was 0.24 mm (range 0 to 0.8). The amount of adherence of the posterior capsule to the posterior lens surface was less with the laser ridge design than with the meniscus lens.