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.
