Luminance contrast with clear and yellow-tinted intraocular lenses.

PURPOSE: To determine whether yellow-tinted intraocular lenses (IOLs) negatively affect luminance contrast in postoperative cataract patients.

SETTING

Department of Ophthalmology, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

METHODS

Luminance contrast was measured using the minimum-motion technique. The stimulus consisted of blue and red sinusoidal gratings differing in luminance. Patients had implantation of a clear or yellow-tinted IOL and were tested monocularly 2 to 9 weeks after cataract surgery. No patient had concomitant ocular diseases or congenital color defects, assessed by their ophthalmologist, or flicker-sensitive epilepsy. All patients had a visual acuity of 20/40 or better a mean of 4 weeks+/-2 (SD) postoperatively.

RESULTS

Patients ranged in age from 55 to 89 years. An independent-samples Student t test showed that patients with a yellow-tinted IOL had significantly lower luminance contrast values than patients with a clear IOL (P<.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest that yellow-tinted IOLs affect the perception of luminance under photopic conditions. More blue light was required to make luminance judgments with a yellow-tinted IOL than with a clear IOL. Further study of the functional impact of luminance reduction by yellow-tinted IOLs is warranted.