Phakic Lens for Astigmatism

The ideal surgery for high degree astigmatism and myopia consists in implanting intraocular phakic lenses (IOL), also called intraocular contact lenses.
This special lenses are made of silicone or collamer, and are pretty useful to correct vision flaws like myopia, hypermetropia and astigmatism, even if it’s high degree (10-25 diopters).
These lenses are similar to classic contact lenses, but are implanted between the cornea and the iris, or right beneath the iris.The innovation consists in achieving the same results of LASIK, without having the need to remove eye tissues. In some cases, the phakic lens implant and LASIK can be combined to achieve the optimal correction.

Implantable lenses are suitable for patients that cannot achieve the same results with other procedures; this may happen for example in case of very thin cornea or high degree astigmatism (keratoconus). The kind of lens is fundamental to determine the final vision quality.

There are several kinds, but the most common for treating astigmatism are:

• ICL Visian lenses, created by STAAR Surgical (USA)
• ARTISAN, ARTIFLEX or VERISYSE that guarantee great results

Dr. Badalà implants these astigmatism lenses in Milan and Catania. Surgery starts with one eye: the second is operated a few days after. Cost for this surgery is usually higher than astigmatism laser surgery.