- Medically Reviewed by: Mr Mfazo Hove, Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon
- Author: Mr Mfazo Hove
- Published: March 7, 2025
- Last Updated: October 15, 2026
TL;DR: Modern ICL surgery (implantable collamer lens surgery) offers accurate vision correction and high patient satisfaction. In one eight-year study of central-port lenses, which have a small opening for fluid flow, more than nine in ten eyes were within one dioptre, a unit of lens power, of their intended prescription.¹ Long-term results depend on individual suitability, accurate lens sizing and ongoing monitoring, as well as the operation itself.
Success is not how well you see the day after surgery. It is how well you still see twenty years later, and whether anyone has been checking.
What Success Means For ICL Surgery
A successful ICL delivers five things:
- Clarity: sharp vision without glasses or contact lenses.
- Accuracy: a result close to the planned prescription.
- Stability: a result that holds over years.
- Safety: vision at least as good as you had with glasses, with complications rare.
- Satisfaction: a result you are glad you chose.
What The Published Evidence Shows
Accuracy And Stability
In an eight-year study of central-port ICLs, 83% of eyes were within half a dioptre and 93% within one dioptre of target. The average change in prescription between one month and eight years was only −0.13 dioptres.¹
Safety
In the same study, the safety index was 1.18. This compares the best vision achievable with glasses after surgery with the best vision achievable with glasses before surgery. On average, vision with glasses after surgery was better than before it.¹
The US regulatory trial of the latest spherical and toric ICLs confirmed safety and effectiveness in moderate to high myopia, or short-sightedness, with and without astigmatism. Spherical ICLs correct short-sightedness, while toric ICLs also correct astigmatism, an irregular curvature that can blur or distort vision.²
Durability
Assessment twelve years after implantation confirmed long-term effectiveness.³
Against Laser
For moderate to high short-sightedness, a Cochrane review of three trials, involving 228 eyes and older technologies, found phakic lens implantation safer than excimer laser surgery, and patients preferred it. Phakic lens implantation places an additional lens inside the eye without removing the natural lens. Excimer laser surgery reshapes the cornea, the clear front surface of the eye.⁴
Research on long-term quality of life has reported favourable results after ICL compared with wavefront-guided LASIK for myopia. This is laser eye surgery performed beneath a thin corneal flap, guided by detailed measurements of the eye’s optical imperfections.⁵
Across Thousands Of Eyes
A review of 35 studies and 2,904 central-port ICL eyes concluded that the procedure is safe and effective, with stable outcomes and low adverse event rates, provided the eye is thoroughly measured and the lens carefully selected.⁶
ICL Results At Blue Fin Vision® Eye Clinic
Published studies describe what careful surgeons achieve in general. At our eye clinic, our own measurements describe what happens here. In Mr Hove’s 2024–25 series, 100% of vault measurements at one week were within the target range. Vault is the gap between the ICL and your natural lens.
Every ICL we implant is enrolled in lifelong monitoring, so our experience is recorded against each patient’s baseline, their initial measurements, rather than recalled.
One Blue Fin Vision® patient had a prescription of −7.00 and could not read the largest letter on the chart without glasses. Within 24 hours of ICL surgery she saw 6/5, an eye-chart measurement better than the standard 6/6 reference, and attended a black-tie dinner the following evening without glasses or contact lenses.
Anterior segment optical coherence tomography (OCT), a scan that produces cross-sectional images of the front of the eye, confirmed her vault within our 250 to 750 micrometre target range. Micrometres are units used to measure these very small distances.
This is one patient’s result; your consultant will discuss what is realistic for your eyes.
What Turns a Good Result into a Lasting One
The published results come from careful surgeons working to careful standards. The same result in your eye depends on three things:
- Honest selection. ICL is an honest alternative, not a consolation prize, and not the right answer for every eye. An eye with a shallow front chamber, the space between the cornea and iris, or a low endothelial cell count, the number of cells lining the inner surface of the cornea, for example, is better served by another procedure.
- Accurate sizing. Explained in our article on ICL sizing and suitability.
- Measurement for life. Every ICL at Blue Fin Vision® is enrolled in the ICL Lifetime Monitoring Protocol™, included in the cost of surgery, with vault, endothelial cells and anterior segment health, the health of the structures at the front of the eye, tracked against your own baseline.
If a result needs refining, eligible self-pay patients have a clinically indicated enhancement, an additional treatment to refine the remaining prescription, within 24 months at no cost to the patient, carried out by the original consultant.
If a cataract develops later, the Post-ICL Cataract Surgery Pathway gives you both a clinical route back to the same team and defined financial cover: no charge within two years of implantation and half price from two to ten years, as our article on cataracts after ICL explains.
Explore these resources before your consultation:
- Hear from patients on our ICL patient experience page.
- Read patients’ accounts in our ICL reviews.
- Read our patient information leaflets.
- Take our ICL surgery checklist to any consultation.
Book a consultation with Blue Fin Vision® to discuss your suitability for ICL surgery and the results realistically achievable for your eyes. Our consultant-led UK team provides care across London, Hertfordshire and Essex.
References
- Kamiya K, Shimizu K, Takahashi M, Ando W, Hayakawa H, Shoji N. Eight-year outcomes of implantation of posterior chamber phakic intraocular lens with a central port for moderate to high ametropia. Front Med (Lausanne). 2021;8:799078. doi:10.3389/fmed.2021.799078. PMID: 34977099.
- Packer M. Evaluation of the EVO/EVO+ Sphere and Toric Visian ICL: six month results from the United States Food and Drug Administration clinical trial. Clin Ophthalmol. 2022;16:1541-53. doi:10.2147/OPTH.S369467. PMID: 35645557.
- Moya T, Javaloy J, Montés-Micó R, Beltrán J, Muñoz G, Montalbán R. Implantable collamer lens for myopia: assessment 12 years after implantation. J Refract Surg. 2015;31(8):548-56. doi:10.3928/1081597X-20150727-05.
- Barsam A, Allan BDS. Excimer laser refractive surgery versus phakic intraocular lenses for the correction of moderate to high myopia. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014;(6):CD007679.
- Kobashi H, Kamiya K, Igarashi A, Matsumura K, Komatsu M, Shimizu K. Long-term quality of life after posterior chamber phakic intraocular lens implantation and after wavefront-guided laser in situ keratomileusis for myopia. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2015;41(4):800-5.
- Montés-Micó R, Ruiz-Mesa R, Rodríguez-Prats JL, Tañá-Rivero P. Posterior-chamber phakic implantable collamer lenses with a central port: a review. Acta Ophthalmol. 2021;99(3):e288-e301. doi:10.1111/aos.14599.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mr Mfazo Hove
MBChB MD FRCOphth CertLRS
Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon | Founder and Medical Director, Blue Fin Vision®
Mr Mfazo Hove is a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon with more than two decades of experience across NHS and private practice and more than 57,000 ophthalmic procedures performed. He trained for six and a half years at Moorfields Eye Hospital and served for five years as an NHS consultant at the Western Eye Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
He specialises in cataract surgery, refractive lens replacement, laser vision correction and implantable Collamer lenses (ICL). He is the founder and Medical Director of Blue Fin Vision®, a private ophthalmology group providing consultant-delivered care across London, Hertfordshire and Essex. His cataract surgery outcomes are publicly reported through the National Ophthalmology Database.
A ZEISS Key Opinion Leader and international speaker, Mr Hove is a contributing author to The Ophthalmologist. His writing examines how clinical governance and the organisation of ophthalmic services shape patients’ experiences and outcomes, with a focus on transparent outcome reporting, surgical training and long-term accountability for patient care.
