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I want to describe a relatively new development in cataract surgery, which is extremely exciting
and I think is gonna lead to a complete revolution in how we do cataract surgery. Cataract surgery
is a extremely safe procedure and has been that way for decades. However, we are trying
to achieve results that get patients completely independent on eyeglasses both for far and
for near. So we're trying to develop nuanced methods that allow us to get more and more
and more precise results. Historically over time, we, in the 70s and 80s, 1970s and 80s,
we've been removing cataracts in patients moving on towards the elderly years in their
80s and 90s. Now the technology gotten so much better, cataract surgery is being performed
younger in more active patients and they want more. They want to be able to see far, they
want to be able to see near. What I want to talk about is called the femptosecond laser,
which is a laser method of performing cataract surgery. What a cataract is is the clear lens
of the eye, which has become cloudy and brown like this and the way I like you to picture
a cataract is if you picture an M&M candy. When we do cataract surgery, we approach the
lens and we come in through a small incision in the eye, we remove the front surface of
the eye, and in prior years it's been done manually with an instrument. Now this process,
this surface process, can be done with a laser, a femtosecond laser, which is exactly the
same laser I've been using for about a decade to do my LASIK correction. So this same laser
can be used to create this round circle in the top of that M&M shell so it's perfect
every time. The laser can then instead of this device to go in a manually remove the
cataract, the laser actually fragments and breaks the cataract apart so that we then
just briefly have to come in and remove the cataract material. It decreases the surgical
time, it increases the accuracy of result, and the femtosecond addition to cataract surgery
is probably one of the most exciting things on the horizon. We have approval for that
device now. There are cataracts being done now daily with this method and you'll see
that increasing over time. So a femtosecond laser is an ultraviolet laser beam that, again,
I've been using for a long time for LASIK, now we're starting to use it for cataract
to give us a perfect circle in the outer part of that M&M shape. It breaks apart the cataract
in there so that all we have to do is briefly vacuum out the contents of the lens and then
we have a perfectly shaped capsule in which the implant goes. Now when wed do it manually,
there's a little bit of irritability and that's typically fine, but if I wanted to know exactly
what outcome I going to get and be able to promise the patient their best spectacle independence,
then I think the femptosecond laser is going to helps us do that in a better way. So you'll
here more and more about this, this is a nice introduction to it and keep in touch for more.