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Clinicians report safe results from new presbyopia surgery
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NEW YORK — Intracor (Technolas Perfect Vision GmbH), a new surgical treatment for presbyopia, was shown to be safe due to its specific avoidance of the epithelium and targeting of the stroma, according to a speaker here at Vision Expo East.
“The advantage is that you’re not creating a flap, as with LASIK, or removing the epithelium, as with PRK, so there’s less risk of infection, and the corneal integrity is left intact,” Kristen Brown, OD, FAAO told attendees . “When you don’t break the epithelium, you don’t open the window of risk for infection.”
The Intracor procedure is an intrastromal femtosecond laser ablation where the laser beam is focused into the mid-stroma, about 100 microns deep into the cornea, forming vertically placed bubbles of carbon dioxide in five ring cuts. These ring cuts lead to a change in corneal refraction that can be manipulated to compensate for presbyopia, Brown said.
The procedure, from start to finish, can be completed in 15 to 20 seconds and has been shown to improve near vision and maintain intermediate and distance vision, she said.
However, according to a study done last year of 63 eyes that were followed for 1 year, about 71% of patients were satisfied with their outcomes and about 20% were dissatisfied, according to Brown.
“What concerns me about the procedure is not the actual procedure itself, but the 20% who were not satisfied,” she said. “That’s really high. If you look at other procedures out there like cataract surgery or LASIK, even without premium IOLs, the number’s between 4% and 6% dissatisfied.”
Intracor has not yet been approved for use in the U.S.
Disclosures: Brown has no relevant financial interests to disclose.