Effect of Yellow-Tinted Intraocular Lens on Standard Automated Perimetry (SAP) and Short-wavelength Automated Perimetry (SWAP) in Patients With and Without Glaucoma

Glaucoma is mostly a disease of old people and is highly accompanied with cataract.Some of these patients may need to perform cataract surgery during the course of glaucoma. But in glaucoma patients, the effect of cataract surgery and/or type of implanted intraocular lens (IOL) on the results of specific visual field tests, like SWAP, is still not well studied.From the past decade, various yellow-tinted IOLs with the speculation of protecting the retinal photoreceptors and decreasing the incidence of age-related macular degeneration have been introduced.These blue-light-filtering IOLs contain a yellow chromophore that filters ultra violet (UV) and a larger part of the high-energetic visible blue-light between 380 and 500 nm. Based on previous studies yellow-tinted IOLs decrease the amount of light transmission to the retina which may theoretically affect perimetry results. This might be even more important in patients with glaucoma where the sensitivity of test locations has decreased per se.

Since early diagnosis of glaucoma and its progression is highly dependent on visual field results, it is important to evaluate the effect of these IOLs on perimetry, particularly on SWAP, in which the blue-light-filtering IOLs might interfere with its findings.