Extracapsular cataract extraction : the fate of retained lens material and intraocular lenses

The aim of this study was to examine the fate of the lens material that remains in the eye after an extracapsular cataract extraction both with and without insertion of an intraocular lens. Apart from this, the development of precipitates on the intraocular lenses was morphologically investigated in order to get a better understanding of the interactions between eye and intraocular lens. This thesis is divided into a first part covering animal experiments and a second part about morphological studies on human material, i.e. autopsy eyes or explanted intraocular lenses. For obvious reasons it is nearly impossible to obtain human eyes after a short implantation time. Therefore in order to study the early events I had to turn to an animal model. Between these two parts we have summarized our data on human anterior lens capsules obtained from extracapsular cataract extractions.