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Refractive surgery steadily increasing in Europe
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PARIS — The future of European ophthalmology will witness an increase in the volume of refractive surgery, according to a specialist here.
"Looking at the distribution of refractive errors, we can see that there is only a very small group of emmetropic people. About half of the European population are hyperopic, and 25%, more than 100 million now, are myopic, 64% of which is mild, 32% moderate and 4% high," Thomas Kohnen, MD, said at the meeting of the French Society of Ophthalmology.
Corneal refractive surgery has been developing over the last 20 years, and currently, there are 65 available corneal procedures. The excimer laser has dominated the scene for most of these 2 decades, but femtosecond laser is taking over and will soon be used in more than 90% of the procedures, he said.
Lens-based refractive surgery is also on the increase. With the aging of the population, presbyopia will become a fast-growing problem, and refractive surgeons will be in high demand. In Germany, 17 million people are currently older than 65 years, and in the next few years, there will be an estimated increase of 4 million.
"Refractive lens exchange (RLE) will be the choice for these patients," Dr. Kohnen said. "Industries are concentrating a lot of their efforts in the development of new IOLs that will further improve the opportunities to have good vision in presbyopic age."
Five years ago in Europe, 80% of procedures were corneal surgery and 20% were lens surgery.
"In our university in Heidelberg, corneal surgery, including incisional and laser procedures, is now 65%, and lens surgery, including phakic IOLs and RLE, is 35%," Dr. Kohnen said.
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