Secondary intraocular lens implantation.

The visual, refractive, and surgical results with 190 consecutive secondary implantations of an anterior chamber intraocular lens were studied. Best-corrected postoperative visual acuity was either better than or within 1 Snellen line of best-corrected preoperative vision in 87% of the cases. Vision worsened by more than two Snellen lines in ten cases (5%), which included three cases of retinal detachment and one case of ischemic optic neuropathy; however, in only one case (0.5%) did we feel that the visual decrease was directly attributable to the secondary implantation procedure. We believe that secondary intraocular lens implantation can improve functional visual acuity in aphakic patients, especially those unable to tolerate aphakic correction with contact lenses or spectacles.