The placement of implant can be primary (contextual surgical debulking of the bulb) or secondary (after surgical debulking, in order to fill the empty socket or correct the lack of movement). In addition to implants for the ocular prosthesis motility there are other implants for the orbital fractures reconstruction (eg. the so-called “blow-out” of the orbital floor). The implant can be placed free or it can be coated with autologous, synthetic or heterologous (donor) material.
In enucleation the implant is a device placed in the Tenon’s capsule or covered with a donor sclera, instead in evisceration the implant is contained in patient sclera. Implant purpose is the movement transmission to the ocular prosthesis and filling the anophthalmic socket which has lost the volume of the bulb and the endo-orbital contents. It may be made of biocompatible acrylic or autogenous material (i.e. taken from the same organism in which it was implanted).
