COMPARISON OF PSEUDOACCOMMODATION AND VISUAL QUALITY BETWEEN A DIFFRACTIVE AND REFRACTIVE MULTIFOCAL INTRAOCULAR-LENS

Purpose: To determine depth of focus and visual quality after implanta tion of a diffractive intraocular lens (IOL) and a refractive IOL. Set tings: University Eye Clinic, Vienna, Austria. Method: This study comp rised 10 eyes of 9 patients with a diffractive IOL (3M 825x+4) and 13 eyes of 9 patients with a refractive lens (AMO Array SSM 26NB). Depth of focus was evaluated in defocused range of -6.0 to +3.0 diopters (D) , and Snellen visual acuity was recorded. Results: Distance acuity pea ked at 1.0 +/- 0.2 (3M group) and 0.91 +/- 0.13 (AMO group). The near acuity peaks were at 0.82 +/- 0.15 and 0.55 +/- 0.14, respectively. Vi sual acuity of 0.5 was possible in a range of defocus of + 1.0 to -4.0 D (3M) and + 1.0 to -3.5 D (AMO). Conclusion: Pseudoaccomodation and full distance visual acuity were realized with both types of multifoca l lenses. For intermediate distances, visual acuity may be limited to activities that do not require optimal vision. At near distances, the 3M lens provided statistically significantly better visual acuity.