ASCRS Live: Comparing TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue IOL with the TECNIS Symfony Legacy IOL

Daniel Chang, MD, discussed his paper on a study comparing TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue IOL with the TECNIS Symfony Legacy IOL at the 2023 ASCRS annual meeting in San Diego.

Video transcript

Editor’s note: Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Daniel Chang, MD:

Hi, I'm Daniel Chang from Empire Eye and Laser Center in Bakersfield, California. I'm going to talk about my paper that I presented here at ASCRS entitled "Impact of Violet Light Filtration and High-Resolution Lathing on the Clinical Performance of a Diffractive Extended Depth of Focus IOL." Basically, this was a study that looked at the new TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue IOL compared to TECNIS Symfony Legacy, or colorless IOL. We had up to 120 eyes, or basically 60 patients, who were randomized for bilateral implantation of either the new TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue, or the original TECNIS Symfony. This was randomized, it was double-masked so both the patient and the test taker, or the test administrator were masked to the identity of the IOL. Basically, we had 29 patients bilaterally implanted in each group. We looked at clinical performance specifically with respect to visual acuity, distance near, we looked at the near blur point in the reading. We looked at the manifest refraction. More importantly, we're trying to focus on differences, can we pick up differences. We looked at low contrast visual acuity, we looked at chair time, and we looked at patient reported outcomes.

So basically, we follow these patients out for six months, and I reported the one month data here at ASCRS. The results basically showed what we expected. Those previous benchtop and computer modeling, as well as a retrospective study that we did looking at the differences of these lenses. The main intent for this lens was reduced the amount of dysphotopsia and the symptoms associated with glares, halos and starbursts. We didn't see much difference in visual acuity and manifest refraction on the bench and the computer simulation level. And just like that, in the clinical study, we didn't see any differences that were significant in distance visual acuity, near visual acuity, manifest refraction. For low contrast, visual acuity, which is the strictest test, we saw some trends that favored the TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue. Particularly as the contrast went down, the differences were bigger. However, we never quite reached statistical significance in our relatively small sample size.

For the patient reported outcomes, we did have a difference in patients that reported any symptoms of halos and starbursts. Which was a small proportion, there was a greater proportion of those patients who had difficulty with or stopped doing activities because of both halos and starbursts. So those were significant in that sub-population of groups. So there was a difference. Importantly, we looked at patient satisfaction, high patient satisfaction, 93% and TECNIS Symfony Legacy that said they would want the lens again, they would recommend to friends, they're satisfied. And 100% for those same three questions [for TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue], they are happy with the lens are recommended to their friends and would do the same thing again. So overall, great outcomes for both groups. But there were subtle improvements. In the new designer, the TECNIS Symfony OptiBlue, which basically has the violet light filter, a high-resolution lathing method and also of course, the correction of chromatic aberration