Purpose To compare capsular bag stability and posterior capsule opacification (PCO) of a plate-haptic intraocular lens (IOL) and a standard three-piece open-loop-haptic IOL of the same acrylic material.

Methods In this randomised bilateral patient-masked and examiner-masked study, each patient received a microincision cataract surgery IOL (MICS IOL; Acri.Smart 46S=CT SHERIS 209M) in one eye and a small incision cataract surgery IOL (SICS IOL; AcriLyc 53N = CT 53N, both Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Germany) as a control in the contralateral eye. Follow-up examinations were performed 1 h, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year and 3 years postoperatively. Anterior chamber depth (ACD) was measured and retroillumination images were performed at all postoperative follow-ups. Furthermore, uncorrected and corrected distance visual acuity, autorefraction and subjective refraction were assessed.

Results In total, 50 eyes of 25 patients were included. The ACD difference between the MICS IOL and the SICS IOL was not significant at any time point (p>0.05). Distance-corrected visual acuity at the 3-year follow-up was similar and not significantly different between the groups (p=0.48). Mean AQUA score in the MICS IOL group and in the SICS IOL group at the 3-year follow-up was 2.3 (SD ±2.3) and 2.1 (SD ±2.2), respectively (p=0.79).

Conclusions The investigated hydrophilic acrylic plate-haptic MICS IOL with a hydrophobic surface showed comparable results concerning capsular bag stability and PCO rates up to 3 years compared with a SICS IOL of the same material.