Patients with vision problems can achieve “supervision” thanks to the first personalized eye surgery.
The innovative technology, carried out for the first time in the UK yesterday, creates a 3D digital clone of a patient’s eyes.
The treatment is then tailored to your specific needs, achieving better results than with current standard prescriptions for laser eye surgery with glasses.
Experts believe it could become the standard treatment for thousands of patients treated for vision loss each year.
The digital clone, called ‘Eyevatar’, also duplicates the way an individual sees.
This allows surgeons to operate virtually “many times to perfect the results” before performing the operation on the patient.
Surprisingly, trials have suggested that the treatment, which costs £6,500 for both eyes, can result in vision better than 20/20.
Trials found it had a 100 percent success rate in achieving 20/20 or “normal vision,” eliminating the need to wear glasses.
Patients with vision problems can achieve ‘supervision’ thanks to the first personalized eye surgery
Rebecca Hackworth, 50, underwent new laser surgery using new technology (pictured above) which leaves some patients with better than 20/20 vision.
But half achieved vision of 20/12.5, according to findings published in the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
This means they can see at 20 feet what a person with normal vision needs to be 12.5 feet away to see.
About eight percent scored 20/10 or “perfect vision,” which is generally only seen in one percent of the population.
Early results suggest it could also improve night vision, something never before seen in laser eye surgery.
Ophthalmologist David Allamby, who carried out the procedure on six patients at London’s Focus Clinic yesterday, said it had the potential to “transform” corrective eye surgery.
One of the first patients to benefit is Rebecca Hackworth, who needed reading glasses to see the text clearly.
The 50-year-old communications director was also nearsighted, making things in the distance confusing.
Allamby said he hopes the results mean he will now be able to see perfectly.
Patient Rebecca Hackworth, 50, pictured with David Allamby, ophthalmologist and director of Focus Clinics in London, who performed her surgery.
He said: ‘I think everything went very well. I treated his right eye only with ray-tracing guided LASIK to give him what we call combined vision.
‘His right eye sees very clearly at a distance, and his left eye suffers from mild myopia, allowing him to read without glasses.
“The result is crystal-clear distance and reading without glasses.”
And he added: ‘The technology has been in development for almost 20 years and is a great advance.
‘This means we can now perform surgery virtually and treat the eye many times within the computer to refine and remove aberrations.
“The new ray tracing procedure understands these optical imperfections and is able to adjust the laser treatment pattern to correct them.
“The implication is that this raises the bar for what we can achieve with laser eye surgery and will become the new standard for what patients expect from treatment.”
The technology is used as part of laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK), the most common type of laser eye surgery in the UK.
Some patients achieved 20/12.5 vision, meaning they can see at 20 feet what a person with normal vision needs to be 12.5 feet away to see.
The innovative technology, carried out for the first time in the UK yesterday, creates a 3D digital clone of a patient’s eyes.
It uses lasers to reshape the cornea and correct vision problems such as myopia and astigmatism, using a uniform prescription in the same way that glasses do.
With this precision treatment, a new Sightmap scanner first creates an ‘eyevatar’ of a patient’s eye.
The digital twin then tracks up to 2,000 light rays to determine their path as they are refracted and focused within the eye by the cornea and lens.
Laser eye treatment can then be customized so that all rays are correctly focused on the retina, achieving the best possible vision.
Yesterday, the UK became the first country in Europe to routinely offer the procedure, at a clinic popular with celebrities.
Allamby added: “It’s a really exciting technology.” If it works like it has in the studies, it will really make a big difference for a lot of people.
‘I expect that around three-quarters of patients will achieve 20/12, and around 20 per cent will achieve 20/10, binocularly.
“It’s surprising, considering that less than one percent of humans can see this well.”