Refractive Cataract Surgery Dallas
What is Refractive Cataract Surgery?
Refractive Cataract Surgery is an approach to Cataract surgery that aims to provide LASIK-like results with Cataract surgery. Its goal is to minimize the need for glasses after cataract surgery.
What are the important qualities of a Refractive Cataract surgeon?
- Board certified in Ophthalmology.
- Experience with a wide range of lens implants including Multifocal lens implants (that correct vision for near and far).
- Ability to use and availability to a laser to perform LASIK or PRK in case an enhancement is required.
What is the history of Refractive Cataract Surgery?
Most patients who had Cataract surgery prior to the 1970s did not have a lens implant placed in their eyes and were guaranteed extremely thick “coke bottle” glasses after surgery. In 1980, lens implants started to get popular, but the technology for measuring lens power was not ideal and thus most patients still required glasses.
In the early 2000s, as LASIK became more common, Cataract surgeons started wanting to provide Cataract surgery patients visual results similar to LASIK. Thus, a new field of Refractive Cataract surgery was born. The doctors at LaserCare Eye Center are refractive cataract surgeons. Early attempts were placed first at improving lens implant technology. This brought us astigmatism correcting lens implants and multifocal lens implants that allow vision far and near.
More recently, technology has improved:
- Practices like LaserCare Eye Center are able to provide true laser cataract surgery with a Femtosecond laser similar to what is used for LASIK.
- The biggest recent advance has been the introduction of ORA Intraoperative aberrometry. In the past, the measurements for the power of the lens implant placed after cataract surgery were made in the clinic before surgery with the cataract still in place. Now with the ORA “Smartvision” system (as we like to call it), an additional measurement is made on the operating table with the cataract out. This allows an unprecedented improvement in lens power accuracy.
