Purpose: To investigate the effect of different intraocular lenses (IOLs) on lens epithelial cells (LECs) and on human capsular bags in vitro and to evaluate the transferability of this model to clinical situations.
Methods: Sham cataract surgery, including IOL-into-the-bag implantation, was performed on 38 donor eyes after removal of the cornea. The capsular bag including the IOL was removed, pinned on a culture dish, covered with medium, and incubated. Two different IOLs were compared per pair of donor eyes. In each pair of donor eyes, the two different IOLs to be compared were implanted individually into capsular bags. The time required for complete coverage of the posterior capsule by a confluent monolayer of LECs was documented. The following IOLs were compared: three-piece acrylic IOLs of different sizes and single-piece polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) versus acrylic IOLs.
Results: A complete monolayer of LECs on the posterior capsule was observed to form at times varying from 8 days (PMMA IOLs) to more than 60 days (three-piece hydrophobic acrylic IOLs). A significant difference between PMMA IOLs and hydrophobic acrylic IOLs was found.
Conclusions: The human capsular bag model employed allows short-term evaluation of secondary cataract formation for different IOLs. This model's correlation with clinical results is good.