A Revolution for Cataract Eye Surgery

One in four people will develop cataracts in a lifetime. If left untreated, cataracts can cause complete vision loss. Cataract removal surgery has a 99% success rate – restoring and even improving vision in the majority of patient. Nonetheless, cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide.

Deriving from the Latin word ‘cataracta’ meaning ‘waterfall,’ a cataract causes a clouding of the eye lens. Proteins in the eye build up causing opacification of the natural eye lens that allows light to reach the retina allowing us to identify images.


The only available treatment for cataracts is complete removal cataract and, in addition, the removal of the eye lens. When cataract removal surgery began, once the eye lens had been removed, patients needed to wear ‘coke-bottle’ eye glasses to retain any form of vision. Eye surgery techniques have since advanced and today, once the natural eye lens has been extracted, ophthalmologists replace the lens with an intraocular lens (IOL).



Multifocal and multifocal intraocular lenses revolutionized cataract surgery. Vision can be restored and even improves unrelated vision problems such as long-sightedness; however many patients still required prescription glasses to provide 20-20 vision after surgery.

Light Adjustable Lenses (LAL) are set to re-revolutionize cataract surgery, completely removing the need for glasses after surgery and restoring 20-20 vision.

Light adjustable lenses are implanted into the eye following cataract surgery in the same way as IOLs. The difference between IOLs and LALs is that following implantation, ophthalmologists adjust the lens inside the eye.

Lenses work by directing light backwards through the eye to the retina where images are formed. The amount of light and the direction the light travels depends on the shape and curvature of the lens. Using ultraviolet light, eye surgeons alter the shape and curvature of the LAL once the lens is inside the eye, ensuring that the replacement lens perfectly matches the patients’ needs.

Having been trialed in Germany and the United States, Light Adjustable Lenses are becoming available to patients in the UK for the first time.

Cataract extraction surgery – the cataract removal and implantation of an IOL lens – costs on average £1500 per eye. The price of cataract surgery using a light-adjustable lens would be as much as £3000 per eye, yet this additional cost is one many will happily pay to restore 20-20 vision and protect the health of their eyes.
The results of cataract extraction surgery from the German and U.S. trials have proved positive, with patients reporting a complete restoration to vision. The new lenses have to date been trialed on a limited number of patients, but with results expected to be long-term cataract eye surgery using LALs is projected to be an increasingly popular method of vision correction after cataracts.

For more information about cataract eye surgery using multifocal and monofocal lenses and to learn more about the new Light Adjustable Lenses, contact an ophthalmologist.