Laser Cataract Surgery More Accurate Than Manual

Laser Cataract Surgery More Accurate Than Manual.


Cataract surgery, already an exceptionally conservative and affluent procedure, can be made more word-for-word by combining a laser and three-dimensional imaging, a unfamiliar study suggests. Researchers found that a femtosecond laser, worn for many years in LASIK surgery, can thin into delicate eye tissue more cleanly and accurately than directions cataract surgery, which is performed more than 1,5 million times each year in the United States thyroxine. In the flow procedure, which has a 98 percent ascendancy rate, surgeons use a micro-blade to weaken a clique 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 comprehension measurements before slicing through the lens capsule and cataract, though ultrasound is still cast-off to dispose of the cataract itself. "It takes some cleverness and animation to break the lens with the ultrasound," explained convince researcher Daniel Palanker, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University milan-amlodipine besylate. "The laser helps to race this up and decide it safer".



After practicing the laser modus operandi on pig eyes and donated human being eyes, Palanker and his colleagues did further experiments to bind 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 drawing circles in lens capsules 12 times more fastidious than those achieved by the well-known method i pill bd. No adverse gear were reported.



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



Dr Scott Greenstein, a complete ophthalmology and cataracts qualified at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, said he was uneasy that the exploration was funded by a presence with a upright in the outcome. But he added that the details was encouraging. "I opinion am ardent by it," said Greenstein, who teaches ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. "It's an enhancement of something we're already doing that's from head to toe successful". "We difficulty a sum of centers studying this with more patients," he added. "It would be utilitarian to interview if there is a significant statistical reformation in the outcomes".



Both Greenstein and Dr Richard Bensinger, a Seattle ophthalmologist and spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, expressed influence on that the laser-guided cataract surgery would be much more up-market than handbook surgery and were skeptical that fitness guaranty companies would be enthusiastic to pluck 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 tract that it can avoid a tear in the cornea - but the downside is you sine qua non a very expensive machine to do it. It's at best a slightly refinement that adds a speck precision".



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



So "Over the thousands of cases I've done, I'm in actuality not knowing personally of this being a problem," Greenstein said. "If you have a less precise, knowing surgeon then this would be a profit for the patient. It makes reproducible, exact incisions every time". Palanker said further enquire will focus on whether laser-guided cataract surgery results in better postoperative perception than traditional surgery Procomil spray germany. Among the immature group of study participants, he said, there was no significant diversity in outcomes between the two.