Alpha Eye Center

Eye Treatments
Cataract Surgery

Cataract surgery is the removal of the lens of the eye (also called "crystalline") that has developed an opacification, which is referred to as a cataract. Metabolic changes of the crystalline lens fibers over the time lead to the development of the cataract and loss of transparency, causing impairment or loss of vision. During cataract surgery, a patient's aging and cloudy natural lens is removed and replaced with a synthetic lens to restore the lens's transparency.

Following surgical removal of the natural lens, an artificial intraocular lens implant is inserted (eye surgeons say that the lens is "implanted"). Cataract surgery is generally performed by an ophthalmologist (eye surgeon) in an ambulatory (rather than inpatient) setting, in a surgical center or hospital, using local anesthesia (either topical, peribulbar, or retrobulbar), usually causing little or no discomfort to the patient. Well over 90% of operations are successful in restoring useful vision, with a low complication rate. Day care, high volume, minimally invasive, small incision phacoemulsification with quick post-op recovery has become the standard of care in cataract surgery all over the world.

Currently, the two main types of cataract surgery extraction performed by the ophthalmologists are phacoemulsification (phaco) and conventional extracapsular cataract extraction (ECCE). In both types of surgery an Intraocular lens is usually inserted. Foldable lenses are generally used when phaco is performed while non-foldable lenses are placed following ECCE. The small incision size used in phacoemulsification often allows "sutureless" wound closure. ECCE usually require stitching.

Cataract extraction using intracapsular cataract extraction (ICCE) has been superseded by phaco & ECCE, and is only rarely performed.

We now know that the lens can spontaneously dislocate into the vitreous cavity in certain diseases including Marfan's Syndrome and Homocystinuria. The dislocations of the crystalline into the vitreous cavity may require surgical intervention to prevent the development of intra-ocular inflammation and increase of the intra-ocular pressure.

Until recently, the only option for cataract surgery was a fixed-focus lens - typically designed for faraway distances - which left the patients needing bifocals or reading glasses to see up close. However, advances in cataract surgery has led to new types of implantable lenses. Unlike the standard single-power lenses doctors have been implanting for 30 years, the newer multifocal introcular lenses and accommodating lenses allow patients to see near, far, and in between "and even shed their glasses". These advances are allowing once legally blind people to "see nearly perfectly without any help."

Multifocal lenses work by having more than one focal point, much like bifocal or trifocal eyeglasses. Bausch & Lomb's accommodating lenses are on struts, and when inserted into the lens capsule the eye's focusing muscles move the lens back and forth, allowing the patient's eye to focus like a young person's eye.

 

source: wikipedia.org