Refractive Lens Options
Sharpen your vision through Refractive Lens Exchange.
RLE is an innovative laser vision correction procedure that exchanges your eye's natural lens with a tiny implant, giving your eyesight new clarity.
Choose from a range of powerful lens implant technologies to suit your vision goals and lifestyle.
Refractive Lens Exchange (or RLE) is an alternative for many patients who aren’t suitable candidates for LASIK surgery, such as patients over age 40.
What Are The Different Refractive Lens Options Implanted?
A key benefit to refractive lens exchange is the wide variety of lenses you can choose to have implanted based on your unique needs, lifestyle, and vision goals. Dr. Besser customizes a vision correction solution based on these goals, choosing from a number of high-performance implant technologies that can reduce or eliminate the need for glasses at all distances.
Most intraocular lenses (IOLs) are made of coated silicone or acrylic, protecting the eyes from harmful ultraviolet lights, one of the key functions of a natural lens.
The types of IOLs available include:
Monofocal Fixed-Focus IOL
A monofocal intraocular lens provides clear vision at distant, intermediate, or near range.
However, this lens can only correct vision in one of these ranges at a time. Patients that choose this refractive lens option may correct distance vision, but still need reading glasses.
Multifocal IOL
A multifocal intraocular lens provides clear vision at multiple distances by incorporating different capabilities into various zones of the lens. These refractive lens exchange options are frequently used to replace reading glasses.
Toric IOL
A toric intraocular lens incorporates different vision capabilities in specific zones of the lens. It corrects the different refractive errors associated with astigmatism.
Accommodative IOL
This is a type of monofocal lens that corrects vision at different distances by changing its position or shape inside the eye.
Since Refractive Lens Exchange utilizes the same surgical technique as cataract surgery, the intraocular lenses used are the same in the two procedures.
You can find an in-depth comparison of the various IOL technology types here.
To learn more about lens options or whether you’re a candidate for refractive lens exchange, contact our offices today to schedule a consultation.