Cataract Operations and Intraocular Lenses
While working with Royal Air Force casualties during World War II, Ridley noticed that when splinters of acrylic plastic from aircraft cockpit canopies became lodged in the eyes of wounded pilots, they did not trigger rejection, leading him to propose the use of artificial lenses in the eye to correct cases of cataracts.
He had a lens manufactured using the same material — brand name Perspex made by ICI — and on 29 November 1949 at St Thomas' Hospital, Harold Ridley achieved the first implant of an intraocular lens, although it was not until 1950 that he left an artificial lens permanently in place in an eye. The first lens was manufactured by the Rayner company of Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, a company which continues to manufacture and market modern, small-incision versions of these lenses today.
In 1952 the first IOL implant was performed in the United States, a Ridley-Rayner lens implanted at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia.
Ridley went on to develop modifications of his intraocular implants but did so in the face of prolonged, strong opposition from the medical community. In reaction to the exclusion of papers on the subject of IOLs from the main medical society meetings, in 1996, he founded with his pupil Peter Choyce, the Intra-Ocular Implant Club. An account of this was made by a founder member of the Club, Michael Roper-Hall,
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- "This was a time when established ophthalmology was hostile to the use of intraocular implants and led to an invitation by Harold Ridley and Peter Choyce for a group of us to meet at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on 14th July 1966 to discuss our experiences. The program included papers with almost equal emphasis on intra-ocular lenses and keratoprosthesis. At the end of the meeting we all agreed to establish the Intra-Ocular Implant Club (IIC), which later became the International Intra-Ocular Implant Club (IIIC)."
In July 1975, the Intra-Ocular Implant Club was re-named The International Intra-Ocular Implant Club (IIIC) which is today a thriving club for ophthalmic surgeons.
Ridley worked hard to overcome complications and had refined the technique by the late 1960s. With his pupil Peter Choyce he eventually achieved worldwide support for the technique, and the intraocular lens was finally approved as "safe and effective" and approved for use in the USA by the Food and Drug Administration in 1981. These first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved lenses, (Choyce Mark VIII and Choyce Mark IX Anterior Chamber lenses) were manufactured by Rayner. Cataract extraction surgery with intraocular lens implantation is now the most common type of eye surgery.
Read more about this topic: Harold Ridley (ophthalmologist)
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