BIOMEDICINE : New Allergan Lens to Allow Smaller Incisions During Cataract Operations

A new artificial lens that will allow surgeons to make smaller incisions during cataract operations, and therefore speed the healing process, is being marketed by Allergan Inc. of Irvine.

Allergan spokesman Norris Battin said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave approval on Nov. 1 to Allergan’s medical optics division to begin marketing the new device, called the SingleStitch PhacoFlex Intraocular Lens.

Battin said the new lens will be used in conjunction with a relatively new procedure for removing cataracts, a clouding of the eye’s natural lens that afflicts about five million Americans, most of them elderly. The new procedure, he said, allows cataracts to be shattered through ultrasound and then removed by suction through a tiny incision.

Until now, Battin said, after the cataract was suctioned out of the eye, a larger incision had to be made to implant an artificial lens. But the new lens, Battin said, is made of silicon and can be folded so that it can be inserted into the eye through an incision that is only 3.5 to 4 millimeters long and can be closed with a single stitch.

The smaller incision, Battin said, hastens healing and the improvement of vision and enables patients to return more quickly to normal activities.

The company said it conducted a study that found one-third of 10,000 patients who underwent the SingleStitch method had good vision within a week of surgery and many were able to return to normal activities within a few days. With other methods, visual recuperation usually takes three to six weeks, Allergan said.