Blue light-filtering intraocular lenses use has no apparent disadvantage over non-BF-IOLs for insomnia: Study

This nationwide cohort study uses the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Researchers enrolled 171,415 patients who underwent cataract surgery in both eyes between 2008 and 2013 and followed them in 2018. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to balance the baseline characteristics between the two IOL groups. The Cox model and cause-specific hazard model were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HR) and subdistribution hazard ratio (SHR).

The Results of the study are as follows:

Overall, 19,604 (11.4%) and 151,811 (88.6%) patients had BF-IOL and non-BF-IOL implants, respectively. The BF-IOL group tended to be younger, and had fewer chronic diseases. Within a mean follow-up period of 6.2 years, the incidence rates of insomnia (per 100 person-years) in the BF-IOL and non-BF-IOL groups were 2.97 and 3.21, respectively. There was no significant difference in the incidence rate of insomnia between the two IOL groups after treating all-cause mortality as a competing risk (SHR = 0.98, 95%CI = 0.95–1.01) and after PSM (HR = 0.97, 95%CI = 0.92–1.01), respectively. Subgroup analysis reveals that there was no statistical significant in the insomnia rate between the two IOL groups for various age groups, two sex groups, and men with and without benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Given the effect that filtering of blue light might have on sleep patterns, the authors investigated the incidence of insomnia after cataract surgery and placement of blue light-filtering intraocular lenses (BF-IOLs). They found no statistically significant difference in the rate of insomnia over 10 years between BF-IOLs and non–BF-IOLs after implantation.

There was no apparent disadvantage with respect to insomnia in those receiving BF-IOLs as opposed to those receiving non–BF-IOLs.

Thus, the researchers concluded that in Taiwan, the use of a BF-IOL for up to 10 years had no apparent disadvantage over non-BF-IOLs with respect to insomnia.

Reference:

Effect of blue light-filtering intraocular lenses on insomnia after cataract surgery: A nationwide cohort study with 10-year follow-up by Lai-Chu See et al. published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

https://www.ajo.com/article/S0002-9394(22)00013-7/fulltext