Endothelial cell loss and corneal thickness after intracapsular extraction and iris clip lens implantation: a randomised controlled trial (interim report).

Patients in a randomised controlled trial were chosen either to have iris clip lens implantation after intracapsular cataract extraction or intracapsular extraction only. They were assessed in terms of corneal thickness, postoperative epithelial oedema, and endothelial cell counts. All patients had 1 eye submitted to operation, which was carried out by the same surgeon. There was significantly greater increase in corneal thickness (P less than 0.05) on the 5th postoperative day in eyes which had lens implants (23 patients with intracapsular extraction and 19 with implant), but the difference between the 2 groups became insignificant at 1 month (17 patients in each group). Daily corneal thickness measurements and observations of epithelial oedema in a subgroup (20 patients divided equally into 2 groups) showed that postoperatively there was greater and more widespread corneal oedema after implant surgery. When the operated eye was compared with the unoperated eye, endothelial cell loss was significantly greater in those with implants (P less than 0.01) than in those with simple intracapsular extraction.