In August, the cataract surgery team at Whitsett Vision Group began performing cataract surgery with the use of Tecnis Symfony, a newly FDA-approved lens implant. This new lens represents a major advance in lens implant technology, and an exciting new option for cataract and lens exchange patients who desire good reading as well as distance vision after surgery, while reducing or eliminating dependence on corrective lenses.
Before Symfony, cataract patients had a variety of lens implant options, but each carried with it certain drawbacks as well as advantages. A traditional monofocal (single vision) lens is affordable and can provide good distance vision, but leaves the patient dependent for life on reading glasses or bifocals. Multifocal lenses such as the Tecnis® Low Add MF can offer good near, middle, and distance vision for many patients, and represent the current standard for active adults who desire the greatest possible freedom glasses after cataract surgery. However, those lenses have their share of limitations: some patients complained of glare, and other patients noticed ranges “in-between” the near, middle, and far focal points, where vision was not as sharp.
Symfony is known as an Extended Range of Focus lens, and is the first of its type to be available in this country. Its advanced design can provide the excellent near, middle, and far vision of a multifocal lens, while reducing the intermediate blurriness and glare. Symfony has been available in Europe since 2014, where it has provided excellent results to tens of thousands of patients, and where cataract surgeons see it as a major advance in intraocular lens technology. Symfony received FDA approval this summer, and is now available to patients in the United States.
We were honored to be accorded the privilege of performing the first Symfony procedures in Houston, and excited to offer this new option to our patients. It was made possible by our participation in the clinical trials for Symfony, which is only the most recent example of our ongoing involvement in clinical research. Whitsett Vision Group’s status as a sought-after clinical trial site has given our surgeons an early look at many revolutionary technologies such as Symfony and the Tecnis Low Add, which we were the first practice in the country to implant, and is now one of the most popular and well-regarded multifocal lens implants in use today. Vision correction surgery is a very fast-moving field of medicine, with amazing advances happening constantly. We are committed to remaining at the forefront of that technology, to offering our Houston-area the safest, most effective technology, and in many cases offering it first.
If you have any questions about Symfony, or about cataract surgery in general, please feel free to contact us. We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have, or schedule an examination and consultation for you with one of our cataract specialists.