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 \nremains in the eye after an extracapsular cataract extraction both with and \nwithout insertion of an intraocular lens. Apart from this, the development of \nprecipitates on the intraocular lenses was morphologically investigated in \norder to get a better understanding of the interactions between eye and \nintraocular lens. \nThis thesis is divided into a first part covering animal experiments and a \nsecond part about morphological studies on human material, i.e. autopsy \neyes or explanted intraocular lenses. For obvious reasons it is nearly impossible \nto obtain human eyes after a short implantation time. Therefore in \norder to study the early events I had to turn to an animal model. Between \nthese two parts we have summarized our data on human anterior lens capsules \nobtained from extracapsular cataract extractions.