Hydrophobic versus hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lens on posterior capsule opacification: a Meta-analysis

AIM: To conduct a Meta-analysis pooling randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to compare hydrophobic with hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lenses in terms of posterior capsule opacification (PCO) development. METHODS: Electronic databases including PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were queried from their starting till January 2020. RCTs investigating the impact of hydrophobic versus hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lenses on PCO were considered eligible in this study. The pooled effect estimates were calculated using the random-effects model. RESULTS: Thirteen RCTs comprising of 939 patients (1263 eyes) were covered in this study. Patients with hydrophobic acrylic intraocular lenses had a lower PCO score than those with a hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lenses standard mean difference: -1.80; 95% confidence interval (CI): -2.62 to -0.98; P<0.001]. Moreover, the frequency of neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) capsulotomy in patients with hydrophobic acrylic intraocular lenses was significantly lower than patients with hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lenses (relative risk: 0.38; 95%CI: 0.20-0.71; P=0.003). CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that hydrophobic acrylic intraocular lenses are superior to hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lenses in patients after cataract surgery due to lower PCO score and reduced Nd:YAG capsulotomy. While similar studies are conducted by other researchers, the present study conducted subgroup analyses that show superior results with hydrophobic lenses in trials conducted in western countries.