WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Using a laser to take apart a lens clouded by cataracts can make the tricky eye surgery easier and more precise, doctors reported on Wednesday.
They employed a laser to break up the damaged lenses before taking them out and replacing them with an artificial lens.
“The results were much better in a number of ways — increasing safety, improving precision and reproducibility, and standardizing the procedure,” said ophthalmologist Daniel Palanker of Stanford University in California, who led the study.
“This new approach could make this procedure less dependent on surgical skill and allow for greater consistency,” Palanker, whose study was reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, said in a statement.
His team used a laser made by ophthalmic device company OptiMedica Corp., based in Santa Clara, California.
“The precision was improved by far more than our expectations,” Palanker said in a telephone interview.
Cataracts form when the eye’s lens is damaged, often aging or long-term exposure to sunlight, clouding vision. The lens is a small bag of fluid that helps focus light in the eye.
Cataract surgery is very common. About one-third of people in the developed world will have it done at some point. The U.S. National Eye Institute says more than 1.5 million such procedures are done every year in the United States, making it the most common surgical procedure.
Cataract surgery is technically difficult and finesse is needed as any slip in the multi-step process can damage vision.
