Aphakia

Aphakia is the absence of the eye’s crystalline lens. It causes loss of the lens’s focusing power and may be congenital or result from surgery or injury.

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Crystalline lens: The transparent, flexible structure inside the eye that changes shape to focus light on the retina. Its absence defines aphakia and removes a major source of the eye’s refractive power.
Cataract surgery: An operation that removes a clouded crystalline lens, usually replacing it with an intraocular lens. Lens removal without replacement is a common route to aphakia.
Congenital aphakia: A rare condition in which the crystalline lens is absent from birth because it failed to develop. It is the congenital form of aphakia, distinct from lens removal after injury or surgery.
Pseudophakia: The state of having an artificial intraocular lens in place of the natural crystalline lens. Unlike aphakia, pseudophakia restores lens presence inside the eye after lens removal.
Accommodation: The eye’s adjustment of optical power to focus on objects at different distances. Aphakia eliminates the lens-based focusing adjustment used for near vision.
Contact lens: A thin corrective lens worn directly on the eye’s surface. Contact lenses can correct aphakia while reducing the image magnification of thick spectacles.
Traumatic aphakia: Absence of the crystalline lens resulting from penetrating or blunt eye injury. Trauma may dislocate or destroy the lens, producing aphakia without planned surgery.
Cataract: Clouding of the crystalline lens that reduces or distorts vision. A cataract leaves the lens present but opaque; aphakia means the lens is absent.
Hyperopia: A refractive error in which the eye focuses light behind the retina when accommodation is relaxed. Without the crystalline lens, the eye becomes markedly farsighted unless optical power is restored.
Secondary intraocular lens implantation: Surgical placement of an intraocular lens after the original lens-removal operation. It can address aphakia when no lens was implanted during the initial surgery.