[Pre-clinical Evaluation of Intraocular Lenses through Simulated Implantation]

The development of new optical designs for intraocular lenses (IOL) is a major challenge for lens manufacturers, as postoperative patient satisfaction is difficult to assess a priori with new concepts. Until now, invasive clinical investigations were carried out for this purpose. In contrast, the simulated implantation of IOLs allows a risk-free determination of the achievable visual performance and a subjective evaluation of the visual impression of new optical concepts. For intraocular lens manufacturers, this offers, on the one hand, the possibility to take the subjective perception of test persons into account during the development and optimization of novel lens designs and, on the other hand, to carry out comparative performance tests with known products before the first implantation. By means of simulated implantation, subjectively optimized IOLs may lead to a better postoperative visual quality for the patients and minimize the risk of a cost-intensive development of products with clinically unacceptable visual perception achievements due to optical side effects. The application of the simulated implantation during the preoperative patient consultation may enable the determination of the patient's subjective visual preferences and result in a targeted IOL selection recommendation. In addition to an improved selection from an existing IOL portfolio, IOL manufacturers could also offer individualized multifocal IOLs that match the patient's previous preference pattern. This article explains the technical background and application scenarios of the simulated implantation and introduces current procedures and devices.