Sterilization of intraocular lenses

1. A process for sterilizing an intraocular lens, the process comprising:

providing a hydrophobic acrylic, or low water acrylic, intraocular lens and positioning the acrylic lens in a lens enclosure with an aqueous solution; and

heating the lens enclosure to a temperature sufficient for sterilization, wherein the heating of the lens enclosure must begin before the acrylic lens reaches an equilibrated, hydrated state following contact of the lens with the aqueous solution, said sterilized intraocular lens to have less than sixty percent of total volume of disc-like features after 60 days following sterilization compared to an acrylic lens of the same composition that was sterilized under the same conditions, but in an equilibrated, hydrated state.

2. The process of claim 1 wherein the acrylic lens comprises acrylate or methacrylate monomeric units with aromatic functionality.

3. The process of claim 1 wherein the intraocular lens comprises silicon monomeric units.

4. The process of claim 1 further comprising extracting the acrylic intraocular lens with a low-expanding organic solvent to remove unwanted polymerization products or non-reacted monomer from the polymerized lens, and drying the solvent-extracted lens under vacuum at temperatures from 40° C. to 110° C. for at least thirty minutes prior to positioning the acrylic lens in a lens enclosure.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the providing of the acrylic intraocular lens includes drying a solvent-extracted lens under vacuum at temperatures from 40° C. to 110° C. for at least thirty minutes.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said sterilized intraocular lens has less than thirty percent of total volume of disc-like features after 60 days following sterilization compared to the lens of the same composition that was sterilized under the same conditions, but in an equilibrated, hydrated form.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising sealing the lens enclosure prior to heating.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the heating of the lens enclosure begins within two hours of contacting the acrylic lens with the aqueous solution with the lens package at room temperature.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the acrylic lens comprises acrylate or methacrylate monomeric units of formula III

wherein R is either hydrogen or CH 3 , R 1 is hydrogen, C 3 -C 12 alkyl with optional oxygen functionality selected from carboxy and monohydric or polyhydric alcohols.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the acrylic lens is a copolymer comprising:

a first monomeric component, present in the copolymer from 30% to 85% by weight, a homopolymer of the first monomeric component will have a refractive index of at least about 1.50; and

a second monomeric component, present in the copolymer from 5% to about 30% by weight, a homopolymer of the second monomeric component will have a glass transition temperature from about −100° C. to about 60° C., wherein the first and the second monomeric components comprise at least about 80% by weight of the copolymer.