The vision is clear at the same time near and far

apeine twenty seconds to remove the first effect marking the age on the organization. Armed with his new femtosecond laser, the first of this generation to France, the team of Professor Ridings of vision, Marseille hospital, promises a miracle in the quadras. With this infrared scalpel which cost 500,000 euros Marseille hospitals Public Assistance, it can simply shaping a progressive lens by intervening in the thickness of the cornea (the windscreen of the eye) of patients with presbyopia, result of the loss of flexibility of the lens after forty years.

It is the ophthalmologist Colombian Luis Ruiz who has developed this technique using the extreme accuracy of the laser cutting for virtually carving vitreous: by touching the surface of the eye, beam ionized matter and form bubbles of water and carbon dioxide from 2 microns in diameter which provide sufficient resistance to puncture the cornea. The South American surgeon exercised this option to create rings of dots in the superficial tissues which can then stretch to increase depth of field of vision. "In this way, says Bernard Ridings, it compensates for the rigidity of the lens on the refraction of light. The vision is clear at the same time near and far.

Results twenty-five patients were presented in September in Barcelona at the Congress of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons. "12 Months after the intervention, patients have won 4.5 lines of Visual acuity, from 0.11 to 0.12 logmar (the unit of measure of vision)", summarizes the study. "Our first feedback of experience show the Narcotics progress", confirms Ridings, which operated patients since July 20. Not only they emerge from the block found the view, but technology significantly reduces the risks and side effects than invasive methods. "We found or infections, inflammation, or thinning of the cornea", summarizes the professor. Moreover, intervention is painless and its computer cockpit allows a reproducible setting of the gesture to the thousandth of a millimetre. As many arguments to convince every year hundreds of patients by the lens age limit to put hand to the wallet: operation, not reimbursed by social security, is charged between 1,000 and 1,200 euros.

Considerable market

The market is considerable: with 38 million carriers of glasses and lenses in France, 24 million of presbyopic vision problems affect more than one French on two, and three out of four from fifty years. They are also more numerous (at least 300,000) last year, against 14,000 a decade ago to use the laser surgery to correct their vision problems. In total, since 1987, with the appearance of the first infrared instrument in blocks 35 million patients worldwide, including more than 1 million in France, have been treated.

The remarkable results achieved by the ophthalmologists are the result of a ceaseless innovation for more than twenty years. "The vision surgery is among those who have the most evolved in recent years", finds in Perfect Vision, the manufacturer of the femtosecond laser delivered in Marseille, which he hopes to sell at least 5,000 best (the previous generation, sold 540,000 euros, was distributed less than 1,000 units). The decrease in the size of impacts and the progressive increase in their frequency allows doctors to intervene more finely on the defects of the cornea and thus change the path of light rays passing through the focus precisely on the retina.

No one speaks more cutting, but shaping: the brevity of the time of the laser on cornea pulse avoids heating point and allows all "fantasies" to extend the operation to new audiences. "10 to 15 of patients with a too high myopia and a cornea too fine could not take advantage of the standard technique", explains John Conrath, surgeon ophthalmologist in vision hospital. With the femtosecond, everyone is on the same footing of equality. Whatever the anomaly, 80 of people with glasses and contact lenses could dispense with these prostheses. "This new technology makes possible the creation of corneal tunnels for insertion of rings in the treatment of the Keratoconus or lamellar corneal transplantation. "These surgeries will be common in a few years, prognostic Conrath." It is likely that the laser will allow to intervene more deeply in the eye, to replace the aging lens by an artificial lens or a gel that will allow the operation of a new accommodation for example.