Developing IOL Designs

During this decade, two lens designs emerged out of the many considered and developed that were to increase the use of intraocular lenses: the Choyce MKVIII anterior chamber design of Peter Choyce and the 4-loop Iris Fixation lens of Cornelius Binkhorst.

The Choyce MKVIII was introduced in 1963 having been developed through successive changes from the 1956 MkI design, a modification of the Strampelli lens.

The 4-loop Binkhorst lens was first manufactured by Morcher (Germany) in 1957 and the Rayner version, developed in association with Binkhorst, was introduced in 1962. A modification of the Binkhorst lens by Fyodorov (Moscow) was developed in 1968.

Under John Green, who had joined Rayner in 1962, the small implant department increased in size throughout the 1960‘s – from a staff of two at the beginning of the decade to six by the end. New techniques were developed for the manufacture and secure fixing of the loops of iris fixation lenses.

The loop material chosen, with the help and advice of ICI, was nylon 66. Yet, even with an increased interest in their use, the demand for intraocular lenses remained very low with only a few hundred lenses a year supplied.