The first commercial phacoemulsification procedure with Charles Kelman, MD, as the inventor and surgeon occurred in 1967 in the United States.
The first IOL implant was 18 years earlier in 1949 by Sir Harold Ridley in England. The Zeiss OPMI 1 operating microscope was developed in Germany and launched in 1953.
The evolution and continuous improvement of these three devices and the ophthalmic surgeons who use them combined to create the modern-day miracle of today’s cataract surgery with IOL implantation, which benefits 5 million Americans and nearly 30 million patients globally every