Lasik

Understanding of dry eye has improved dramatically, and we have come to appreciate that optimizing the ocular surface and ensuring the health of the tear films are easily the most important unmet needs in improving patient care and surgical outcomes. This applies not only to routine cataract surgery, but to LASIK and a variety of other ophthalmic surgeries as well.

Patients who underwent femtosecond lenticule extraction for the treatment of myopia and myopic astigmatism had stable results 10 years after the procedure.

Like any other part and function of the body, the eye and vision change over time. In the last two decades, advanced solutions have been developed to meet the needs of individuals at each stage of this process, allowing them to maintain healthy eyesight and enhance quality of life through spectacle-free vision. With such a wide spectrum of options available, it makes sense now to overcome fragmentation and give patients what they need at different stages of ocular maturity within the framework of a lifetime plan for vision.

In this issue of Ocular Surgery News, our cover story explores two new procedures that promise to restore natural accommodation among presbyopes: VisAbility from Refocus Group and LaserACE from Ace Vision Group. Each procedure works by a different mechanism, and each purports to significantly, permanently and safely restore natural accommodation.

LAS VEGAS – The use of aberrometry can provide peace of mind when patients do not see 20/20, according to a speaker here at Vision Expo West.

PARIS — At the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons meeting, Noel Alpins, MD, gives pearls on how to prevent residual corneal astigmatism and related nighttime visual phenomena in LASIK patients. He also gives instructions on how to get access to an online free vector planning calculator.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Alcon has launched two additions to its WaveLight Refractive Suite, the Phorcides Analytic Engine diagnostic software and the Easypack Patient Interface.

LASIK has been a successful procedure now for many years. The basic steps of the procedure, including a femtosecond lamellar flap and excimer laser ablation, are well understood. However, there is still a lot of confusion out there among patients — and, frankly, clinicians — about the terminology we use to describe the various LASIK platforms currently in use around the world.

Epithelial thickness mapping can help solve diagnostic dilemmas for ophthalmologists considering refractive surgery for patients with mild abnormalities on tomographic or topographic scans.

Noel Alpins, MD: Any future role played by wavefront technology in surface ablation is likely to emulate the same principles that are applied in LASIK surgery. This is likely to be directed to the advantages achieved in reduction of spherical aberrations. The treatment of astigmatism and the reduction of consequent higher-order aberrations such as third-order coma and trefoil will be limited without closer alignment of the maximum ablation to the principal corneal meridia than is currently performed with wavefront technology.