Motorized versus Manual Injectors for Implantation of Intraocular Lenses after Phacoemulsification

Phacoemulsification is the preferred technique of cataract extraction worldwide in view of its undisputed advantages over other methods of lens removal such as intracapsular and extracapsular surgeries. With the newer foldable lenses, better instrumentation and novel injector systems, the incision size on the cornea required for a successful phacoemulsification has been reduced progressively with the current foldable intraocular lenses (IOL) being implanted through an incision as small as 2.2 mm. However, the reduction in incision size has its own disadvantages of greater wound distortion, descemet’s membrane detachment (DMD), posterior wound retraction and wound gape at each step of phacoemulsification especially during IOL implantation. The use of motorized injectors has been proposed to reduce these complications. Autosert (Alcon Laboratories, Inc., Fort Worth, TX, USA) is a motorized injector system that is commonly used during phacoemulsification for insertion of IOLs. The hand piece contains a miniature motor that is driven by the software at a constant predetermined speed despite momentous changes in load caused by compression of the Acrysof IOL into the nozzle of the cartridge.