Equipment for laser eye surgery

When performing an operation on the eyes, 2 factors determine the success: the skill of the surgeon and the quality of the equipment.

Features of the equipment

The newer the equipment, the more accurate it is. This is especially important for patients with complex cases – who have eye trauma, compound astigmatism, or other complicating factors. The more accurately we can make a “map” of the eye, the higher the probability of returning the maximum possible visual acuity.

Secondly, any equipment wears out over time. The more they work on it, the stronger it gets. Therefore, the equipment of recent years is much better than the equipment of 10-20 years ago, not to mention the reliable, but obsolete Soviet apparatus.

Equipment installed at the OLC

Before the operation, without fail, all patients undergo a complete diagnosis with the Topolyzer VARIO optical topograph. It measures the features and thickness of the cornea at 22,000 points. Based on these data, a unique vision correction plan is created for each patient, taking into account individual characteristics.

The laser correction itself is performed on the latest generation equipment – WaveLight EX500 (Alcon, USA). This is one of the best lasers in many respects, in particular, in terms of its speed. The faster and more accurately the device works, the safer and sooner the operation ends. The WaveLight EX500 is a super fast laser, it operates at a speed of 500Hz (pulses) per second. Therefore, the operation takes less than 10 minutes, including preparatory procedures.

Such a high-speed operation of the laser also requires a very fast system for tracking the position of the eye (so that all impulses are directed to an exactly planned place), at least 2 times faster than the speed of the laser beam. In the Wave Light EX 500 laser, this is 1050 Gy (every 2 milliseconds).

All this equipment is necessary for low-traumatic and safe laser eye surgery.

Actions after the surgery itself:

1. You will leave the operating room in 10 minutes without bandages or otherwise closed eyes.
2. It will be a little painful and bright at first. We recommend sleeping a couple of hours to wait out this period.
3. In the evening there will be a feeling as if there is a mote in the eye and you will already begin to see better. Patients with a large minus notice a particular difference.
4. The next morning – you will see how the world will sparkle with new colors and come to check.
5. The ophthalmologist will tell you how much your vision has recovered.

On the same day, you can drive a car, watch TV, walk without glasses – do any daily activities. The main thing is not to forget to do gymnastics for the eyes and check with an ophthalmologist once a year.

In conclusion, we would like to present some figures:

• Depth of each WaveLight EX 500 pulse is 8 microns;
• For correction of 1.0 diopters with an optical zone of 6.5 mm, the cornea becomes thinner by only 12 microns;
• It takes 18 seconds to correct -5.0D. laser work.