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New endothelial keratoplasty technique combines advantages of femtosecond, excimer lasers
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PARIS — A new technique for cutting an endothelial donor graft combines the safety and precision of a femtosecond laser and the ability of an excimer laser to regularize surfaces.
“The graft is cut and removed by femtosecond laser, and the interface is then photoablated by excimer laser to obtain a smoother surface,” Liem Trinh, MD, said at the meeting of the French Society of Ophthalmology.
This dual-laser technique, named femtosecond-excimer laser endothelial keratoplasty (FELEK), overcomes the drawback of femtosecond laser donor cutting, which has improved reproducibility, safety and accuracy but has decreased surface quality compared with the previous microkeratome technique.
Electromicroscopy images of endothelial interfaces obtained with a microkeratome, a femtosecond laser and a femtosecond laser with excimer laser smoothing showed a marked difference in favor of the latter technique.
“We have so far performed FELEK in three patients using the IntraLase FS 150 (Abbott Medical Optics) and the WaveLight Allegretto excimer laser (Alcon). The EndoSaver injector (Ocular Systems) was used to deliver the graft into the recipient bed. At 1 month, OCT showed that the graft was very nicely attached,” Dr. Trinh said.
Results are too preliminary to draw conclusions on the outcomes of FELEK compared with other methods of endothelial keratoplasty.
- Disclosure: Dr. Trinh has no relevant financial disclosures.