Innovation, improved technology needed to advance refractive surgery
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Key takeaways:
- While current refractive surgery technologies are effective, surgeons should search for better treatments.
- Future trends include expanding candidacy, improving refractive procedures and adopting innovations.
TAMPA, Fla. — Expanding candidacy, improving procedures and adopting new innovations are key to advancing refractive surgery in the future, according to a speaker at the Telling It Like It Is meeting.
“Overall, our goal is to get our patients out of glasses, out of contact lenses,” William B. Trattler, MD, said. “Our current technologies are really safe and effective, but we’re always looking for bigger and better.”
Image: Adobe Stock
In laying a potential pathway for the future of refractive surgery, Trattler said it should start with expanding the range of candidacy for procedures. While most patients he sees are candidates for refractive surgery, some are not. Example of borderline candidates include patients with significant dry eye, mild irregular astigmatism or a history of RK. Poor candidates include patients with keratoconus with loss of visual acuity and patients with Fuchs’ corneal dystrophy.
Trattler said current procedures will need to improve to better treat patients. He has seen a lot of advances in the last 25 years alone, such as better diagnostics and improved laser treatments, and advances in epithelial mapping have helped improve results with current LASIK, PRK and SMILE procedures.
“PRK is a better procedure than it was 15 year ago with less discomfort,” he said. “Our future will be if we can get our patients to be painless, as well as faster vision recovery and avoiding haze.”
Finally, Trattler said innovation will be critical to improving refractive surgery. One area of study that interests him is harnessing index of refraction in the cornea or lens to improve vision.
“This is still very investigational, so we have a ways to go before this will be available,” he said. “It might be a treatment for our patients with keratoconus that aren’t eligible for LASIK or PRK, but maybe that’s a way we can change their prescription in a nice way.”
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Trattler W. The future of refractive surgery: Trends and future innovations. Presented at: Telling It Like It Is 2023; Feb. 15-19, 2023. Tampa, Florida.
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