Laser Cataract Surgery More Accurate Than Manual

Laser Cataract Surgery More Accurate Than Manual.


Cataract surgery, already an extraordinarily unhurt and profitable procedure, can be made more definite by combining a laser and three-dimensional imaging, a inexperienced study suggests. Researchers found that a femtosecond laser, Euphemistic pre-owned for many years in LASIK surgery, can portion 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 penis pluges. In the modish procedure, which has a 98 percent star rate, surgeons use a micro-blade to illustration a ringlet around the cornea before extracting the cataract with an ultrasound machine.



The laser conduct uses optical coherence technology to customize each patient's sidelong glance measurements before slicing through the lens capsule and cataract, though ultrasound is still occupied to transfer the cataract itself. "It takes some ingenuity and vim and vigour to break the lens with the ultrasound," explained command researcher Daniel Palanker, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University jual tas guess kw super. "The laser helps to despatch this up and contrive it safer".



After practicing the laser modus operandi on pig eyes and donated tender eyes, Palanker and his colleagues did further experiments to reinforce 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 mow circles in lens capsules 12 times more conscientious than those achieved by the standard method. No adverse clobber were reported.



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



Dr Scott Greenstein, a inclusive ophthalmology and cataracts master at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, said he was uneasy that the explore was funded by a fellowship with a stave in the outcome. But he added that the text was encouraging. "I alone am uneasy by it," said Greenstein, who teaches ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. "It's an enhancement of something we're already doing that's unreservedly successful". "We requisite a enumerate of centers studying this with more patients," he added. "It would be productive to dig if there is a significant statistical rest in the outcomes".



Both Greenstein and Dr Richard Bensinger, a Seattle ophthalmologist and spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, expressed relevant to that the laser-guided cataract surgery would be much more high-priced than guide surgery and were skeptical that strength security companies would be pleased to start up the tab. "It's a fairly expensive modus vivendi to do something we do right now with a $120 instrument that makes the opening," Bensinger said. "It's healthful to the area that it can avoid a tear in the cornea - but the downside is you desideratum a very expensive machine to do it. It's at best a hardly refinement that adds a smidgin precision".



Although the femtosecond laser technique is unquestionably more precise, Palanker's call that it results in a better match for the artificial lens replacing the clouded one is dubious, Bensinger and Greenstein said. Experienced surgeons performing instructions cataract surgery once in a blue moon have pester aligning the new lens with the student and keeping it in place, they noted.



So "Over the thousands of cases I've done, I'm indeed not informed personally of this being a problem," Greenstein said. "If you have a less precise, accomplished surgeon then this would be a help for the patient. It makes reproducible, practised incisions every time". Palanker said further fact-finding will focus on whether laser-guided cataract surgery results in better postoperative revenant than traditional surgery daftar harga drawing tablet. Among the small-scale group of study participants, he said, there was no significant modification in outcomes between the two.