At a Glance The IC-8 small aperture IOL has been available in Europe since 2014 and provides a novel method of giving patients undergoing cataract surgery “depth of focus”

The interim results of a post-marketing clinical follow-up study are reported here

The lenses also seem more forgiving of residual astigmatism or deviation from target refraction

Surgical procedures on the retina can still be performed with the IC-8 in situ with minimal additional difficulty; stereopsis is unaffected

Patients who wish spectacle-independence following cataract surgery can choose from an ever-increasing number of premium – bifocal and trifocal – intraocular lenses (IOLs) to replace their clouded, crystalline lenses. No IOL available today can match the performance of a clear natural lens, but these premium IOLs do utilize some very complex and clever optical designs to guide the incoming light and give patients multiple fixed optical foci. However, this multifocality comes at a price: compared with monofocal IOLs, patients receiving multifocal IOLs tend to report greater levels of photopic phenomena, lower contrast sensitivity and decreased visual range.