Comments
The World Ophthalmology Congress — the latest in vision surgery
I had the pleasure of attending the World Ophthalmology Congress in Hong Kong, where I was one of the dozen surgeons chosen to perform a ”live surgery” demonstration to the nearly 10,000 eye surgeons in attendance.
My patient was a very sweet 46 year old lady who had a few previous ocular problems: she was very nearsighted (myopic) and had already had a retinal detachment in her right eye. This was repaired at an earlier point, but the right eye only recovered partial vision. Now she developed a cataract in her left eye — her “good” eye.
She was nervous, but I reassured her. I examined her before surgery and noted that it would be a challenge, but one that was familiar to me. I’ve been doing challenging cataract cases for more than 10 years, and from experience I knew that she could recover excellent vision. She was also fortunate to be the very first patient to receive the Crystalens (often misspelled as Crystal Lens) Accommodating Lens Implant. This would give her sharp vision for distance, intermediate, and near activities without glasses. The new Crystalens HD, for High Definition, is the latest generation which provides the best vision to date.
I was wired with a microphone and a camera was aimed at my hands and the patient’s eye. In addition, a high resolution camera was mounted to the microscope that I used during surgery. This was all beamed / transmitted to the convention center where thousands of other eye surgeons watched and had the opportunity to ask me questions — live, as I operated.
I’m happy to say that the case went beautifully, and the patient began to recover sharp vision right after the surgery. Below is a picture of her eye just after the surgery — the Crystalens is positioned behind the pupil and the two slightly whitish areas at the 3 o’clock and 5 o’clock position are her tiny incisions (the whitish appearance resolves in 2-3 days). Even better than the picture of her eye was the picture of her face and her bright smile.
For more information about cataract surgery, cataracts, the Crystalens, Crystalens HD, Crystal Lens, Lens Implants, or other refractive surgery in Los Angeles, see:
Comments
The Implantable Contact Lens (Visian ICL Surgery) in Los Angeles
But what if I’m not a candidate for LASIK? Well, there may be other options available to you, such as the Visian ICL. The ICL is the Implantable Contact Lens, which is a permanent, ultra-thin lens that is surgically placed inside the eye, behind the iris (the blue, green, or brown part of the eye). It requires no maintenance or cleaning and you will not feel it or even know that it’s there.
In Los Angeles, California, at the Maloney Vision Institute, the ICL Surgery is presented as an option to appropriate candidates, along with the other surgical options available. The ICL also has the advantage of being removable from the eye, so that even many years down the road, should better technologies become available, it would be relatively easy to upgrade.
I have also developed the “No-Touch” Technique of ICL placement, where I can place the lens in perfect position without having to touch or manipulate it. Watch my video (see link below) and compare to other videos that you find on the internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx0C1wKF7E4
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7644991633967452967&ei=pyJfSMTBBYT0rQONy6WHDg&hl=en
http://video.yahoo.com/mypage/video?s=4456185
http://www.maloneyvision.com/devgan/visian-icl.htm
Comments
Question: When do you give up on someone’s vision? Answer: You don’t.
Today I did cataract surgery on a very interesting patient. She was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), a genetic disease which causes the retina inside the eye (akin to the ‘film of the camera’) to degenerate. These patients progressively start to lose vision and eventually end up legally blind. These patients also develop other ocular problems such as cataracts.
Our patient was refused cataract surgery by multiple other eye surgeons due to the technical difficulty of the surgery and the limited potential vision due to the RP. She had lost all hope and her cataract had become severe — it was nearly impossible for me to even see inside her eye due to the blockage from the cataract. This delay in her treatment had made a difficult surgery even more challenging.
Using a multi-step approach as well as specially ordered technologies, her surgery was a success. While my routine cataract surgery lasts just 5 minutes, her surgery took nearly 20 minutes — nearly 4 times as long. For the medical readers, she had loose zonules and a dense cataract and required a capsular tension ring as well as a zero spherical aberration intra-ocular lens implant (IOL), phaco chop with phaco power modulations was used to break up the cataract and remove it.
Within the first few minutes after the surgery, she smiled and said that she could already tell that her vision was improved. There’s no way of reversing her RP, but the cataract was completely cured and as a result, she recovered a lot more vision than she had prior to surgery. She’s not able to drive, but she can now do most of her daily activities by herself. This one little surgery has given her a new sense of freedom and independence and has illuminated her world. I was fortunate to be a part of this.
Never give up — there’s always something than can be done. More info at www.maloneyvision.com
Comments
If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail…
The famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow once stated that “If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail.” Clearly, it’s better to have a full set of tools in the toolbox so that the best one is used for each individual job.
This rings true in vision surgery, where the best procedure to correct vision should be custom tailored to each individual patient. While LASIK is commonly used to treat many different patients, conditions, and prescriptions, it is just one end of the spectrum. There are other options such as Refractive Lens Exchange (RLE), Implantable Contact Lenses (ICLs), and even Cataract Surgery, that may be better options for some patients. The full spectrum of vision surgery options should be evaluated for each patient and then the best procedure can be selected.
Of particular interest is the Implantable Contact Lens (ICL) which can be painlessly implanted inside the eye, behind the iris (the blue, green, or brown part of the eye responsible for eye color) in less than 5 minutes. The ICL has the advantage of being able to treat very large degrees of myopia (nearsightedness), far more than is safely possible with LASIK. The ICL is also removable and reversible and is safe in people who have thin corneas. The ICL is currently available in powers from -3 to -16 and a wider range is planned for the near
Comments
Hello world!
Welcome to HealthCare Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
