EVO ICL

Yes. The EVO ICL received FDA approval in 2022, building on the ICL platform approved in the United States in 2005, and millions of ICLs have been implanted worldwide with a strong long-term safety record. Dr. Ilan Cohen performed the first ICL in New York and New Jersey in 2008 and has implanted every generation of the lens since — experience that matters most in the sizing and placement decisions where ICL safety is actually determined.

Broadly: adults roughly 21 to 45 with a stable prescription, moderate to very high nearsightedness — including prescriptions far beyond what laser surgery can safely treat — with or without astigmatism, and sufficient internal space in the eye to hold the lens safely. Thin corneas and dry eye, which disqualify many patients from LASIK, are not obstacles for ICL. The internal measurements taken at your Cohen Eye Institute evaluation give a definitive answer.

No — this is the most common misconception about the procedure. The ICL is an additional lens, placed behind the iris and in front of your natural lens, which stays exactly where it is and keeps doing its job, including focusing up close in younger patients. Think of it as a permanent, maintenance-free contact lens inside the eye rather than a replacement of anything.

The lens is designed to last a lifetime and requires no maintenance, no replacement schedule, and no ongoing care beyond routine eye exams. It is also the only major vision correction option that is fully reversible: if your needs ever change — for example, when cataract surgery becomes appropriate decades later — the lens is simply removed, leaving the eye as it was.

It is rare with the current lens. Earlier ICL generations carried a small risk of accelerating cataract formation if fluid circulation around the natural lens was restricted. The EVO design includes a central port that maintains that natural circulation, which addressed the main mechanism behind the risk. Careful sizing — confirmed through the detailed internal measurements taken before surgery — protects against the remainder.

ICL is typically priced above laser vision correction — in the New York metro area, generally several thousand dollars per eye — because each lens is custom-manufactured to your exact prescription and internal eye measurements, and the procedure takes place inside the eye rather than on its surface. At Cohen Eye Institute the fee quoted at consultation is all-inclusive, with financing options available, and reflects the full course of care from sizing through follow-up.

No. The lens sits in a fluid-filled space behind the iris, touching no nerve-bearing surface, so there is nothing to feel — no awareness of it when you blink, rub your eyes, or sleep. Most patients say they forget it is there within days.

Some patients notice faint rings around point lights early on, related to the lens's central port. For the large majority they fade from awareness within weeks to a few months as the brain adapts, and most patients ultimately report better night vision than they ever had in glasses or contacts at a high prescription. Dr. Cohen reviews this candidly at consultation so nothing about the first weeks comes as a surprise.

Yes — often the best option. Because the ICL is placed inside the eye, the corneal surface and the nerves that drive tear production are left completely untouched, so the procedure neither causes nor worsens dry eye. Patients told elsewhere that dry eye rules out vision correction are frequently ideal ICL candidates at Cohen Eye Institute.

Laser procedures correct vision by removing corneal tissue, and the higher the prescription, the more tissue must go — until safety limits are reached. The ICL removes nothing: it adds a custom lens that does the focusing instead, so a -12 or -16 prescription is corrected as cleanly as a -4. That is why patients told their prescription is "too high for LASIK" are often perfect ICL candidates.

Through direct measurement of the internal structures where the lens will sit — not estimates based on external measurements alone. Sizing is the single most important decision in ICL surgery, and it is where experience shows: Dr. Cohen has been sizing and placing these lenses longer than any surgeon in the region, and the pre-operative workup at Cohen Eye Institute is built around getting that one decision exactly right.

A lens that is meaningfully too large or too small can affect the eye's internal fluid dynamics or sit too close to the natural lens — which is precisely why sizing receives so much attention before surgery, and why the EVO design's central port adds a built-in safeguard. In the uncommon event an exchange is ever needed, the lens can be replaced with a better-fitting one without lasting harm. This is a managed, measurable risk, not a mystery.

Yes. The toric version of the EVO ICL corrects nearsightedness and astigmatism in a single lens, custom-built to your prescription and aligned precisely inside the eye during surgery. Significant astigmatism does not rule you out; it simply changes which version of the lens Dr. Cohen orders for you.