AAO 2023: TECNIS Symfony lens or TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue lens?

Daniel Chang, MD, spoke with Ophthalmology Times about his poster "Clinical performance of a diffractive, extended depth-of-focus IOL, with violet light filtering and high-resolution lathing" at this year's American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting.

Video Transcript

Editor's note - This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Daniel Chang, MD:

Hi, I'm Daniel Chang, from Bakersfield, California. I'm presenting a poster here at AAO entitled "Clinical performance of a diffractive, extended depth-of-focus IOL, with violet light filtering and high-resolution lathing." It's basically a poster looking at a prospective study I did, looking at 60 patients; 30 were implanted bilaterally with a TECNIS Symfony lens, and 30 were planted bilaterally with a new TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue lens. I followed these patients out for 6 months. So it was randomized, bilateral implantation with either the the spherical or the 150 toric version of this lens. Basically, we compare all the standard metrics including uncorrected, best-corrected visual acuity, looked at manifest refraction, looked at the neuro blur of these lenses, looked at the chair time for these patients, looked at low-contrast vision, and did some PRO, or patient questionnaires.

And basically what we found was, these lenses are very similar. They perform very well. The visual acuity had no difference, the manifest refraction had no difference. What we did notice was a difference in low-contrast visual acuity. Although it didn't didn't meet statistical significance, we found that the lower the contrast, the more it favored the TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue. This is a light filter and lathing changes that was designed to increase the contrast, particularly in low lighting conditions. Additionally, we found in the patient, the patient-reported outcomes questionnaire, that patients who did have symptoms of halos and starburts had significantly less symptoms, or inability to do things or limitations on activities, who had the TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue. So basically, the lens does what it's supposed to do: clinical performance, vision quality, refraction, all that stuff is what we're used to. But the [inaudible] at nighttime, starbursts, halos, was significantly reduced. So this is basically the 1 month data.

The 6 month data, actually there was no differences between the two groups. What happens is I think the patients who have the TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue basically get used to the lens or neuroadapts much more quickly than the patients with original TECNIS Symfony. Overall patient satisfaction was 93% in the TECNIS Symfony group at 1 month, and 100% in the TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue group, but by 6 months, they were equivalent. Patients are very happy in terms of "Do you want this lens again? Are you happy with it? Would you recommend it to a friend? "So bottom line is both groups of lenses performed. The TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue seems to have better outcomes early on. So it's easier, from a clinic standpoint. We had done some retrospective studies showing that, the need for enhancements, the need for increased counseling, things like that, is significantly reduced because of the better technology.