Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess, if measuring the position of the lens capsule intraoperatively with a continuous intraoperative optical coherence tomography (OCT) device could be useful to improve the prediction of the intraocular lens (IOL) position.
Methods: This prospective study included patients who were scheduled for cataract surgery. A prototype operating microscope with an integrated continuous OCT device was used to measure the anterior and posterior lens capsule position at different time points during cataract surgery. In all cases, a capsular tension ring (CTR) was used to tauten the lens capsule. Partial coherence interferometry was used to measure anterior chamber depth (ACD) immediately before, and 1 hour and 3 months postoperatively. Partial least squares regression (PLSR) was used to assess the influence of different pre- and intraoperatively measured parameters.
Results: In total, 70 eyes of 70 patients were included. Mean axial eye length was 23.6 mm (range, 20.6 mm-30.8 mm), mean used IOL power was 22.2 diopters (D; range, 6.0 D-31.5 D). PLSR showed that the anterior lens capsule measured after removing the crystalline lens and after implanting a CTR was a significantly better predictor for the postoperative ACD compared with preoperative ACD measurements.
Conclusions: The main problem of IOL power calculation, the prediction of the IOL position after surgery, could possibly be reduced by using intraoperative lens capsule measurements instead of preoperative ACD measurements. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01867541.).
Keywords: OCT; anterior chamber depth; intraoperative ACD; lens position; refractive error.