Phakic Lens Implants at Springfield Hospital

What are phakic lens implants?

Phakic intraocular lenses (IOLs) are plastic or silicone lenses that are permanently implanted into your eye to correct near-sightedness, and reduce the need for glasses or contact lenses.

Phakic lens implants redirect light rays on to your retina to allow your near-sighted eye to see distant objects more clearly.

Phakic means that the intraocular lens is implanted into your eye without removing its natural lens. This differs to cataract surgery, where the IOLs are implanted after your eye's cloudy natural lens (cataract) has been removed.

Phakic lens implants are used to correct refractive errors, when you have a problem focusing light on your retina due to the shape of your eye, particularly near-sightedness (myopia).

If you are near-sighted you have more difficulty seeing distant objects than near objects. The images of distant objects come into focus in front of your retina instead of on the retina, so objects faraway are out of focus or blurred.

Phakic lenses allow light entering your eye to be focused on the retina so that you have clear distance vision without wearing glasses or contact lenses.

Surgery is not required to correct near-sightedness. You can decide to wear glasses or contact lenses instead to give you better vision.

An alternative to phakic IOLs is laser eye surgery, including LASIK and PRK, for correcting myopia. However, not everyone is a good candidate for laser surgery, and it may not be suitable if you have: too much near-sightedness, an unusually thin or irregularly shaped cornea, or an eye condition such as keratoconus or dry eye syndrome.

If you have moderate to severe near-sightedness you may be better suited for phakic IOLs than laser surgery.

Springfield Hospital Specialists

Mr Petros Andreou

Mr Petros Andreou is a Consultant Ophthalmologist in Essex and Hertfordshire specialising in cataracts and glaucoma
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Mr Seyed Ghazi-Nouri

Mr Ghazi-Nouri is a Consultant Ophthalmologist in Essex specialising in cataract and occuplastics.
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Ms Marina Hopes

Marina Hopes is a Consultant Ophthalmologist in Chelmsford, Essex who specialises in Glaucoma and Cataract Surgery
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Mr Dimitris Pimenides

Mr Dimitris Pimenides is a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon in Essex specialising in cataract surgery, corneal transplants and correction of undesirable refractive errors at Springfield Hospital.
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Mr Hamid Porooshani

Mr Porooshani is a Consultant Ophthalmologist specialising in paediatric ophthalmology, squint, cataract, glaucoma, retina and cornea.
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Mrs Priya Prakash

Mrs Priya Prakash is a Consultant Ophthalmologist in Hertfordshire and Essex with a special interest in Medical Retina and Cataract surgery.
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Related Treatments

Cataract Surgery

Surgery to remove the cataract and replace it with an artificial lens.

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Refractive Error Condition

If you have a refractive error condition, the image of what you are looking at is not focussed properly on to your retina and this causes blurred vision.

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Cornea

A cornea transplant, also known as a corneal graft or keratoplasty, is an eye operation in which all or part of a damaged cornea is removed and replaced with healthy donor cornea.

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Phakic Lens Implants