Deposits on the surface of intraocular lenses: a pathologic study.

The clinical course of implanted intraocular lenses is frequently complicated by the formation of deposits or "precipitates" on the lens surfaces. These lesions are related to the amount of inflammation in the eye, the use of pilocarpine, and the presence of lens cortex in extracapsular procedures. Corticosteroids cause the lesions to diminish or disappear. Similar lesions seen in the course of lens implantation in laboratory animals are found on histologic examination to be accumulations of inflammatory cells. In the chronic state the cells are macrophages, epithelioid cells, and giant cells, accompanied in the early stages by acute inflammatory leukocytes. The relationships between these cells, inflammation, the presence of the foreign body, and the chemistry of methacrylate are difficult to sort out.