Laser Cataract Surgery More Accurate Than Manual

Laser Cataract Surgery More Accurate Than Manual.


Cataract surgery, already an hellishly out of harm's way and wealthy procedure, can be made more prim by combining a laser and three-dimensional imaging, a immature study suggests. Researchers found that a femtosecond laser, worn for many years in LASIK surgery, can retrench into delicate eye tissue more cleanly and accurately than handbook cataract surgery, which is performed more than 1,5 million times each year in the United States vimax cook growth price. In the widely known procedure, which has a 98 percent name rate, surgeons use a micro-blade to abbreviated a coterie around the cornea before extracting the cataract with an ultrasound machine.



The laser routine uses optical coherence technology to customize each patient's discrimination measurements before slicing through the lens capsule and cataract, though ultrasound is still reach-me-down to rub the cataract itself. "It takes some knack and determination to break the lens with the ultrasound," explained govern researcher Daniel Palanker, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University glutathione injection dubai. "The laser helps to abruptness this up and originate it safer".



After practicing the laser plan on pig eyes and donated humanitarian eyes, Palanker and his colleagues did further experiments to endorse 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 abbreviate circles in lens capsules 12 times more finical than those achieved by the old method. No adverse chattels were reported.



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



Dr Scott Greenstein, a wide ophthalmology and cataracts knowledgeable at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, said he was uneasy that the probing was funded by a body with a upright in the outcome. But he added that the information was encouraging. "I opinion am discomfited 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 poverty a total of centers studying this with more patients," he added. "It would be expedient to visualize if there is a significant statistical nature in the outcomes".



Both Greenstein and Dr Richard Bensinger, a Seattle ophthalmologist and spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, expressed disquietude that the laser-guided cataract surgery would be much more extravagant than instructions surgery and were skeptical that condition security companies would be ready to option up the tab. "It's a fairly expensive custom to do something we do right now with a $120 instrument that makes the opening," Bensinger said. "It's profitable to the space that it can avoid a tear in the cornea - but the downside is you insufficiency a very expensive machine to do it. It's at best a wee refinement that adds a undersized precision".



Although the femtosecond laser technique is unquestionably more precise, Palanker's assert that it results in a better worthy for the artificial lens replacing the clouded one is dubious, Bensinger and Greenstein said. Experienced surgeons performing vade-mecum cataract surgery hardly have harass 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 actuality not informed personally of this being a problem," Greenstein said. "If you have a less precise, qualified surgeon then this would be a promote for the patient. It makes reproducible, categorical incisions every time". Palanker said further exploration will focus on whether laser-guided cataract surgery results in better postoperative view than traditional surgery mercury drugstore. Among the trifling group of study participants, he said, there was no significant remainder in outcomes between the two.