Staar Surgical announced the first patient implants of the company’s Visian Toric Implantable Collamer Lenses (TICLs) in the United States by Brinton Vision in St. Louis and Parkhurst NuVision in San Antonio. A select group of leading surgeons around the country began implanting TICLs soon thereafter, including Dr. Paul Dougherty in Los Angeles and Dr. Scott Perkins in Phoenix. The TICL was approved in the FDA on September 13, 2018, and the first patient implants occurred on October 22, 2018. The Visian TICL has been approved and available for patients outside of the U.S. since 2002.

“The Visian Toric ICL is big news for refractive surgeons and astigmatic patients in the U.S.,” Jason P. Brinton, MD, Founder of Brinton Vision, said in a company news release. “The Toric ICL offers an excellent vision correction option for new patients and a number of our patients who were previously unable to have a refractive vision correction procedure. My first patient was a 37-year-old truck driver with 20/50 vision and several diopters of astigmatism prior to the ICL procedure. Just one day after implanting the ICL his vision improved to 20/16, and he now has lenses that may outlast him. He’s delighted with his vision outcome and that he no longer needs eyeglasses.”

“The Visian ICL is an ideal vision correction procedure for a good portion of the public,” Gregory D. Parkhurst, MD, FACS, Physician-CEO of Parkhurst NuVision, said in the news release. “The wait is over for this bio-compatible lens, implanted during a minimally invasive, typically brief 20-minute procedure with short recovery time. My first patient was a mother of three from Michigan who was dependent on eyeglasses and daily or monthly disposable contact lenses. She is now free from eyeglasses and disposable contact lenses, describing her ICL experience as completely changing her life for the better. She is just one of the millions of patients we believe can benefit from the Visian ICL family of lenses.”

The Visian Toric ICL lens in the United States is indicated for patients 21-45 years of age for the correction of myopic astigmatism with spherical equivalent ranging from -3.0 D to ≤ -15.0 D (in the spectacle plane) with cylinder (spectacle plane) of 1.0 D to 4.0 D in the spectacle plane. The Visian ICL family of lens are intended for placement in the posterior chamber of the eye without removing corneal tissue or the natural crystalline lens.

“We are thrilled U.S. based ophthalmologists and their patients now have access to the TICL as Staar Surgical marches towards a 1,000,000-lens sales milestone for its Visian ICL family of lenses,” Caren Mason, President and CEO of STAAR Surgical Company, said in the news release. “The Visian ICL family of lenses offer patients visual freedom from spectacles and disposable contact lenses. The first toric implants in the U.S. represent the initial steps in onboarding surgeons as we introduce this lens to more than 50 U.S. markets in the coming months.”