Meridional analysis for calculation of the toric power of phakic IOLs

To present a reproducible method to calculate the toricity needed at the intraocular lens (IOL) plane with toric phakic IOLs (ICL, Staar Surgical) and compare its results with those obtained with the online calculator provided by the manufacturer.

Retrospective case series.

Private practice, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The formula originally described by Holladay to calculate the IOL power in phakic eyes was used to calculate the required spherical power along the less refractive meridian and along the more refractive meridian. Meridional analysis was applied to calculate the required toricity at the IOL plane and the surgically induced corneal astigmatism was incorporated into the calculations. The refractive cylinder predicted by this method and by the online calculator of the manufacturer were compared to the postoperative refractive cylinder by means of vector analysis. The possible changes in the ratio of toricity in patients with different amounts of astigmatism and anterior chamber depth are assessed in a theoretical section.

In 35 eyes, the measured mean postoperative refractive cylinder was 0.09 D @ 99°, the mean predicted postoperative refractive astigmatism was 0.04 D @ 102° according to the manufacturer's online calculator and 0.09 D @100° according to our method. With both methods, 91.43% of eyes had an absolute cylinder prediction error within ±0.50 diopters.

The method described in this article to calculate the toricity of phakic IOLs has a refractive accuracy similar to that of the original calculator developed by the manufacturer.