This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Advances in measuring corneal biomechanics will improve safety of cornea-based refractive surgery

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

WESTON, Fla. — Patient-specific biomechanical measurement of the cornea will be a major component to helping surgeons perform safer and more predictable laser refractive surgery, according to a speaker here.

William J. Dupps Jr.

William J. Dupps Jr., MD, PhD, discussed the nuances of clinical elastography and its implications for refractive surgery candidates at the International Congress on Surface Ablation and SBK, conducted 1 day before the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting.

"As we get better and better at measuring wavefront and corneal geometry, we are still going to run up against biological limitations and variabilities," Dr. Dupps said. "So we want to learn as much as we can about individual patient properties."

Dr. Dupps described an element-based whole-eye model that he and colleagues created, which they also presented in a poster at ARVO. The model was used to study how variations in corneal elasticity impact corneal optical response to IOP changes and myopic LASIK.

Using this model, he and colleagues determined that weak corneas displace maximally at their center, whereas stiff corneas display maximum displacement on the periphery.

"So in this case, we actually get steepening of the cornea that we're not counting on if we treat the cornea as a piece of glass," Dr. Dupps said.

Currently, the Ocular Response Analyzer (Reichert) is one of the best means that surgeons have at their disposal to measure the viscoelastic properties of the cornea. Yet other innovative approaches, including a device that sends seismic waves across corneal tissue to determine corneal stiffness, are advancing this area of study. The device, currently a prototype from PriaVision, is still a few years away from being commercially available, he said.

"It is simple to use, but we do have some issues with contact artifact, and the cornea has to be fairly dry to use this tool. It has not gotten much traction clinically and has to be modified," he said.