This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Femtosecond lasers could usher in new age for cataract surgeons
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Femtosecond lasers may one day enable surgeons to perform anterior capsulotomies, lens fragmentation with reduced phaco energy, clear corneal incisions and limbal relaxing incisions using a single platform, a speaker said.
"I think that many of us feel that it is not unreasonable to say that this is the single biggest development since small-incision phacoemulsification and it's going to change the way we perform surgery," Louis D. "Skip" Nichamin, MD, said at OSN New York 2010. "We're going to have the ability to customize our incisions and create bi-beveled, or tri-beveled or who-knows-what kind of interesting patterns that will probably seal better just like we're doing in corneal transplant surgery today."
Dr. Nichamin discussed his clinical experience as the first U.S. surgeon to use the LensAR femtosecond laser to perform capsulotomy or capsulotomy with lens fragmentation, working with Ramon Naranjo-Tackman, MD, in Mexico City, Mexico. Dr. Nichamin shared data from Dr. Naranjo-Tackman's series of 121 patients. Among 70 patients who received lens fragmentation, phaco energy was reduced by 45% among patients with grade 1 cataracts and by 38% among patients with grade 2 cataracts compared to non-fragmented cases.
Dr. Nichamin said that using femtosecond lasers to create limbal relaxing incisions will improve predictability, consistency and comfort, regardless of a surgeon's experience with corneal refractive procedures.
In addition, the LensAR system shows potential for presbyopia correction, Dr. Nichamin said. Using the platform, surgeons will be able to use patent-pending algorithms to create unique cuts that cause "shaped structural weakening" within the lens to restore accommodation.
"I know this is controversial and people are saying the sky is going to fall. How are we going to pay for this? It's going to happen and it's going to be very exciting," Dr. Nichamin said.
Dr. Nichamin is a consultant for LensAR.