[Artificial intraocular lenses].

Nowadays the "method of choice" is to implant posterior chamber lenses after ECCE or phacoemulsification, but in the literature excellent results have also been reported with ICCE and anterior chamber lens implantation. To date, however, there have been no statistical data available in which these methods have been compared in a fair way. The best anterior chamber lenses seem to be semiflexible monoblock PMMA lenses with open loops (multiflex style). There should not be too much difference between the diameter of the IOL and the diameter of the anterior chamber. Rigid anterior chamber lenses (Choyce style) must be fitted very precisely to avoid complications. Lenses with closed loops (e.g., stable flex) have a very high complication rate and this implantation procedure should be discontinued. Lenses with inserted flexible open loops (e.g., Dubroff) have only been implanted in small series, but the results have been quite good. Follow-up investigations will show what the quality of this type of lens really is. Posterior chamber lenses are mostly implanted into the capsular sac. Only in special cases is sulcus implantation performed; the lens material is mostly PMMA. The loops are also made of PMMA and only rarely of prolene. There is a trend to implant "one-piece lenses"--the optic and haptic are cut out of one piece of PMMA. The rigidity of the loops and the loop configuration are important for centering the IOL and the stability in the sulcus or in the capsular sac. Mainly modified C-loops (Simcoe style) are used. With symmetric, complete capsular sac fixation, the results are very satisfactory.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)