This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Too much hype over femto-phaco?
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
At the just concluded AAO meeting in Chicago, there was a palpable frenzy of activity around the booths and presentations relating to femtosecond-assisted cataract surgery. While we are excited about the new levels of precision that we'll be able to achieve when these instruments become available, it appears that the interest of many is being driven by a fear that their competitors will be the first to acquire one of these machines and gain a significant competitive advantage. Acting out of fear rarely yields productive results, though. Purchasing a technology simply to be the first is likely to lead to knowing too little, paying too much and not having the benefit of future machines that have not entered the market.
Most high-volume practices should certainly take a look at the three technologies soon to be available - those from Alcon LenSx, LensAR and OptiMedica. Even the first generation of these lasers should offer significant advantages over conventional cataract surgery.
By next year's AAO, though, there are likely to be at least two more players with approved or soon-to-be approved femtosecond systems for cataract surgery. Looking back, how many of today's high-volume LASIK centers were the first in 1995 to acquire the very first U.S.-approved excimer laser? How many of us still doing laser refractive procedures today still use the same brand of laser that we first purchased?
Job security for cataract surgeons is in no danger. In an upcoming article in Premier Surgeon that Kevin Corcoran and I put together, we will call attention to the implications of the growing aging population on an ophthalmologist's practice. Within the next 10 to 15 years, most of us are going to face twice as many patients as we do now in this demographic. That means twice as many exams, twice as much surgery, twice as many itchy, burning eyes - twice as much everything. Yet the number of ophthalmologists is declining rather than increasing. Finding patients with cataract will be no problem. They will find us.
At this year's AAO meeting, in regard to purchasing a femtosecond laser for cataract surgery, my friend Warren Hill put it best: "People are afraid to be the last one standing when the music stops." The error in that fear is that the music is not going to stop.