Improvements in Cataract Surgery

It's been said that the ancient playwright, Seneca, read "all the books in Rome" by peering through a glass globe of water. Thousands of years later, near-sited monks used glass spheres known as "reading stones" to magnify text. While the effectiveness of such techniques in actually restoring diminishing sight may be a little fuzzy, it is clear that great thinkers have been wrestling with vision problems for centuries. Today eye care professionals continue to isolate and treat the various conditions that can lead to lose of vision. Dr. Robert P. Lehmann, Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Baylor University in Houston Texas explains: "The major degenerative diseases of the eye that can lead to in some cases complete loss of vision include glaucoma, macular degeneration and cataracts. Those are the big three. The former two macular degeneration and glaucoma can lead to complete and irreversible loss of vision. Particularly glaucoma which was called the sneak thief of sight. Macular degeneration, recently there have been some new treatment modalities developed for this condition although it is still a serious form of irreversible loss of vision. Cataracts on the other hand can lead to loss of vision down to bare light perception, however even at that advanced stage they can be completely reversible with proper cataract surgery."

Developing surgical intervention for the correction of cataracts however, first meant understanding what they are and how they form. Says Lehmann: "A cataract can probably best be defined as a clouding of the God-given crystalline lens. Normally the human crystalline lens transmits light very very efficiently on to the retina. Just like the lens in camera, which transmits light on to the film. When a camera lens becomes clouded the film cannot develop a clear picture. Just as the eye can no longer see clearly." Modern cataract surgeries involve removing the cornea or lens of the eye, and replacing it with what is known as an intraocular lens or IOL. Ophthalmic surgical specialists have been working for decades to develop IOL's that are almost indistinguishable from human tissue.

According to Dr. Lehmann the first IOL's "…required a large incision to go into the eye and often times were associated with some degree of complications." But modern lens implants have evolved now to where they can be folded and passed through a very small incision 3 millimeters and in some cases smaller so that these incisions no longer require any suturing and heal very quickly. A major advancement for patients.

A recently observed surgical procedure performed by Dr. Lehmann used an IOL representing one of the latest breakthroughs. It has been specifically designed to mimic the light filtration properties of the human eye. It is the only intra ocular lens that has been proven to safely and effectively shield the eye from Ultra-violet and lower spectrum visible blue light. It is all part of recently approved surgical platform that also uses Aqualase, a revolutionary technique for removing the patient's defective lens. Previous techniques used ultrasound, or a process known as faco-emulsification. Dr. Lehmann explains the difference between the two technologies. "Faco-emulsification, or as its known ultra-sound involves the movement of a very tiny needle at about 40,000 times a second, or 40,000 Hertz or cycles per second to break up or emulsify the cataracts material. Aqualase on the other hand has no moving parts as in faco-emulsification. The tip of the instrument is placed within the cataract and tiny energetic pulses of warmed fluid impact the cataract itself this causes a process that we refer to as liquefaction. The cataract thus being eroded or dissolved if you will is then simply washed out of the eye, or vacuumed out of the eye. Aqualase allows the surgeon to remove the cataract with a little greater margin of safety then does the ultrasound. It's just a little kinder and gentler for specific kinds of cataracts.

Donald Ward and Louise Stanfield were among the first patients to benefit from the aqualase technology and the new lens implants. Says Donald, "I'm an active sports person, and my friends were just giving me a hard time cause I couldn't see the ball out on the golf course, and they were just kind of giving me hard time about it wasn't much fun to take advantage of a one-eyed blind man with a bad back. I had such a bad condition with the cataracts that we needed to schedule quickly, we did. I had the cataract surgery performed in late February of this year. I went home the same day as the surgery, I came back in the following day for a follow up exam my vision had improved already tremendously and I went back to work immediately." Louise Stanfield had similar results. "Well after I just had the first one done, the left eye and that night when the pupil went down to the normal size, I looked at the paper and I realized I could see the paper better even without glasses, that very night. It was like a miracle." For Dr. Lehmann, results like these are what being a healer is all about. "After more then 25 years in practice the excitement continues to build as new technologies unfold, that offer patients more rapid rehabilitation more certain rehabilitation and just better results every way around."

And for his patients for them, seeing is believing.