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.

Dr Scott Greenstein, a full ophthalmology and cataracts skilled at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, said he was uneasy that the explore was funded by a circle with a share in the outcome. But he added that the matter was encouraging. "I himself am active by it," said Greenstein, who teaches ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. "It's an enhancement of something we're already doing that's relatively successful". "We be in want of a platoon of centers studying this with more patients," he added. "It would be practical to show if there is a significant statistical dissimilarity in the outcomes".

Both Greenstein and Dr Richard Bensinger, a Seattle ophthalmologist and spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, expressed involve that the laser-guided cataract surgery would be much more high-priced than instructions surgery and were skeptical that fitness indemnity companies would be ready to provoke up the tab. "It's a fairly expensive modus operandi to do something we do right now with a $120 instrument that makes the opening," Bensinger said. "It's helpful to the range that it can avoid a tear in the cornea - but the downside is you basic a very expensive machine to do it. It's at best a doll-sized refinement that adds a miniature precision".

Although the femtosecond laser technique is unquestionably more precise, Palanker's set forth that it results in a better shape for the artificial lens replacing the clouded one is dubious, Bensinger and Greenstein said. Experienced surgeons performing guide cataract surgery on rare occasions have pest aligning the new lens with the novice and keeping it in place, they noted.

So "Over the thousands of cases I've done, I'm in reality not hip personally of this being a problem," Greenstein said. "If you have a less precise, master surgeon then this would be a gain for the patient. It makes reproducible, fulfil incisions every time". Palanker said further dig into will focus on whether laser-guided cataract surgery results in better postoperative chimera than traditional surgery three main kinds of touchscreen technology. Among the wee group of study participants, he said, there was no significant peculiarity in outcomes between the two.