Laser Cataract Surgery More Accurate Than Manual

Laser Cataract Surgery More Accurate Than Manual.
Cataract surgery, already an to the nth degree appropriate and winning procedure, can be made more correct by combining a laser and three-dimensional imaging, a supplementary study suggests. Researchers found that a femtosecond laser, Euphemistic pre-owned for many years in LASIK surgery, can digest into delicate eye tissue more cleanly and accurately than enchiridion cataract surgery, which is performed more than 1,5 million times each year in the United States rxlist box. In the inclination procedure, which has a 98 percent good rate, surgeons use a micro-blade to shortened a coterie around the cornea before extracting the cataract with an ultrasound machine.

The laser course of action uses optical coherence technology to customize each patient's affection measurements before slicing through the lens capsule and cataract, though ultrasound is still old to undo the cataract itself. "It takes some talent and animation to break the lens with the ultrasound," explained flex researcher Daniel Palanker, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University keep skin care. "The laser helps to hurriedness this up and seduce it safer".

After practicing the laser routine on pig eyes and donated generous eyes, Palanker and his colleagues did further experiments to strengthen that the high-powered, rapid-pulse laser would not cause retinal damage. Actual surgeries later performed on 50 patients between the ages of 55 and 80 showed that the laser dock circles in lens capsules 12 times more prim than those achieved by the ancestral method mesotac pills. No adverse stuff were reported.

The study, reported in the Nov 17, 2010 progeny of Science Translational Medicine, was funded by OpticaMedica Corp of Santa Clara, Calif, in which Palanker has an disinterest stake. The results are being reviewed by the US Food and Drug Administration, while the laser technology, which is being developed by several own companies, is expected to be released worldwide in 2011.