Advancements in LASIK Eye Surgery Procedure Lead to Better Results

Recent advancements in LASIK eye surgery procedure assures today’s LASIK patients of greater accuracy in terms of…

• vision correction;


• corneal flap-making; and


• laser alignment.

Vision Correction

Today’s LASIK surgery procedure offers patients greater accuracy due to Wavefront technology. Wavefront-guided LASIK is an improvement on the regular LASIK procedure where, instead of applying correction by focusing power on the cornea, a varying correction is applied in spatial increments.

The increments are measured by a wavefront sensor and are used to guide the computer-controlled high-power UV laser, the goal being a more optically perfect eye.

However, the LASIK procedure still requires a highly skilled ophthalmologist who can predict the changes that will occur during the healing process.

Highly accurate wavefront technology should not be expected to result in “super vision.” But many ophthalmologists say that their patients register a higher degree of satisfaction from wavefront-guided LASIK than previous procedures.

Furthermore, wavefront-guided LASIK procedure registered a lower incidence of halos, visual aberrations induced by previous procedures.

Corneal Flap-Making

Advancements in microkeratome technology have made exceedingly rare complications that involve the creation of a penetrating corneal flap that damages the iris and lens.

Microkeratomes now have fixed-depth plates that prevent this from happening—but competence on the part of the surgeon (or whoever is tasked to assemble the device) is still needed, as the microkeratomes have to be assembled correctly.

The modern microkeratome also has a suction that allows an adequate flap to be created during the LASIK procedure. But, again, this depends on the skill and experience of the surgeon.

However, an alternative LASIK procedure to the microkeratome (which uses a metal blade) has been developed. The procedure, called IntraLASIK, uses a femtosecond laser microkeratome to make a series of miniscule, closely spaced bubbles in the cornea.

IntraLASIK allows the creation of an even thinner flap, as well as eliminating a metal blade’s imperfections. The only disadvantage is that it takes longer to create the flap (1 minute) as compared to the conventional microkeratome (seconds).

Laser Alignment

Most of the factors that affect the outcome of a LASIK procedure depend on the physician, the hardware, and the skill with which the physician uses the hardware. The only thing that depends on the patient is the job of focusing his or her pupil on the laser.

When instructed to fixate on a flashing light, most patients are able to position their pupil adequately. However, laser eye-tracking technology has advanced so that any inability of the patient to focus the pupil does not affect the outcome of the LASIK procedure.

Today’s technology enables the laser to monitor the center of the pupil in two ways:

• Passive tracking – where the laser shuts down when the pupil’s center moves beyond the acceptable range
  


• Active tracking – where the laser realigns itself over the correct point before the next laser pulse