Femtosecond lasers will be the future of surgery of cataracts, according to ophthalmologists

-cataract surgery has more than 40 years operating with the method of ultrasonic phacoemulsification

-El doctor Laureano Álvarez-Rementería held a live surgery in the 14th edition of the Congress of OftalmologEd

Elche (Alicante), February 2012.- femtosecond lasers will be the future of cataract surgery, with the manual technique for phacoemulsification ultrasonic, 40 years, according to ophthalmologists meeting until Saturday at FacoElche 2012 has been using. New technology is safe and effective, as most of the steps are performed automatically, “without depending on the skill of the surgeon”, according to the doctor Laureano Álvarez-Rementería, one of the pioneers of this in Spain cataract surgery, and perform a live operation during the Congress.

A study of the Asian Eye Institute (Philippines) published in the latest issue of the journal Current Opinion of Oftalmology ensures that “femtosecond surgery offers some advantages over the traditional of phacoemulsification” and “cataract procedure offers safer results”. Another study carried out by the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Utha (USA) and published last November indicates that “initial investigations show an improvement in the fragmentation of the nucleus, the incision in the cornea and the circular incision of the capsule that surrounds the waterfall”. In addition, “the data collected so far reveal advantages of security and effective against the traditional method”, according to the authors of the study.

Ultrasonic technique all the steps are manual, so that “results may vary”, explains Dr. Álvarez-Rementería, he has done in the past two months the first cataract operations with laser femtosecond in Madrid. On the other hand, this laser, “much of the intervention is guided automatically and accurately by computer in real time”. It is reduced, thus, the possibility that the lens is not focused entirely, “as many people intercepted with the conventional technique, causing halos or stains on the vision,” confesses.

Fast recovery

Another advantage of the intervention with the new laser, according to Dr. Álvarez-Rementería, is that it is painless, of short duration (about 15-20 minutes) and much faster recovery than with the previous procedure: “the patient goes home watching blurry””, but visual recovery does not take place in days, as it was the case at this time, but within hours”. Femtosecond scanning laser lens surface and inside and, through infrared waves, and in a millionth of a second, creates a bubble of air that separates molecules of the lens without cutting or burning any tissue. Thus, it does not damage any adjacent cell.

For the director of FacoElche, Dr. Fernando Soler, “it’s a matter of time that the femtosecond laser replaces phacoemulsification by ultrasound, as it is already happening in other types of interventions, such as presbyopia and myopia, with other types of femtosecond laser”.

The 14th edition of FacoElche brings together more than 360 ophthalmologists of Spain and the rest of the world, and it used the most modern tools of the Internet to publicize the latest advances in technology and medical research applied to eye surgery.

Cataract is the leading cause of blindness in the world. It affects half of those over 65 years but is a natural process, progressive opacity of the lens, which begins to manifest itself after 45-50 years, with the eye strain (presbyopia), and that “just suffering around the world with age”, says Dr. Soler. It is a common cause of costing well define the image of night and that glasses or contact lenses stop being useful.