[The effect of lens haptics on postoperative anterior chamber depth in PMMA posterior chamber lenses]

In two groups of patients with two different posterior chamber intraocular lenses, very different correlations were found between postoperative and calculated anterior chamber depth, and between postoperative anterior chamber depth and axial length. Since it has long been known that there are positive correlations between anterior chamber depth and axial length in phakic patients, while on the other hand (according to many authors) these correlations seem to disappear in pseudophakic patients, and since the present authors found these positive correlations only in patients with one type of implant, they ascribe these differences between similar implants to the geometric configurations of the lens loops. In lenses with modified J-loop designs the optical zone might be dislocated backward when the lens is compressed, while lenses with C-shaped seem to suffer only minimal dislocation or none at all. The importance of this phenomenon in relation to individually different diameters of the eye and different localizations of lens loops, depending on implant technique, are discussed.