Is New Technology Making Lasik Eye Surgery Safer?
Posted on 21 February 2011. | Posted by June Dayton
Lasik Eye Surgery Is Safer And Eyes Heal Faster With Today's Tech.
The latest technology is indeed making lasik eye surgery safer and faster healing. Lasik surgery has been around for years to correct astigmatism, hyperopia, and myopia. It’s a method of changing the focal length of the eye by changing the shape of the cornea, the outer, clear surface of the eye.
One step in the lasik operation used to entail the use of a blade to cut a flap in the front of the cornea. But these days that part of the lasik surgery is also done with a laser. Once the flap is created, it is folded back out of the way to expose the stroma, the middle portion of the cornea. The stroma is then reshaped by the laser and the flap is folded back down.
The older tech used an oscillating blade to mechanically cut across the top surface of the cornea to create the flap. But the newer Femto laser creates the flap by creating a fracture plane in the cornea that does not cause as much trauma to the eye. The resulting cut is smooth and precise and heals in the blink of an eye.
The laser cut is safer, more certain, and does not entail the mechanical friction that a blade does. The new tech also allows finer control over the thickness of the flap. If a patient has a thin cornea, the lasik surgeon can dial the equipment to cut a thinner flap, leaving more cornea untouched for a safer eye surgery. Eyes heal quicker with the more advanced technology.
The best candidates for lasik eye surgery are between 18 and 65. Candidates who are older than 65 must first be screened for cataracts.
In the last ten years almost fifteen million lasik surgeries were performed in the United States, according to the ophthalmic industry research firm, Market Scope, LLC. And 95.4 percent of those patients have declared themselves to be satisfied with the procedure. But in those ten years there have been a number of improvements, like the use of the Femto laser to make that initial cut.
So new data is needed about patient satisfaction rates today. A new study, called the LASIK Quality of Life Collaboration Project has begun to collect and analyze that data.
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