Luminance contrast with clear and yellow-tinted intraocular lenses

PURPOSE: To determine whether yellow-tinted intraocular lenses (IOLs) negatively affect luminance contrast in postoperative cataract patients. SETTING: Department of Ophthalmology, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. METHODS: Luminance contrast was measured using the minimum-motion technique. The stimulus consisted of blue and red sinusoidal gratings differing in luminance. Patients had implantation of a clear or yellow-tinted IOL and were tested monocularly 2 to 9 weeks after cataract surgery. No patient had concomitant ocular diseases or congenital color defects, assessed by their ophthalmologist, or flicker-sensitive epilepsy. All patients had a visual acuity of 20/40 or better a mean of 4 weeks ± 2 (SD) postoperatively. RESULTS: Patients ranged in age from 55 to 89 years. An independent-samples Student t test showed that patients with a yellow-tinted IOL had significantly lower luminance contrast values than patients with a clear IOL (P<.05). CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that yellow-tinted IOLs affect the perception of luminance under photopic conditions. More blue light was required to make luminance judgments with a yellow-tinted IOL than with a clear IOL. Further study of the functional impact of luminance reduction by yellow-tinted IOLs is warranted.