Eye Surgery Procedures
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Laser eye surgeries use a cool gentle beam to reshape the cornea to eliminate or reduce the need for glasses or contacts. Generally, there is LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis) and PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy), as well as intraocular techniques including ICL (Implantable Contact Lens) and RLE (Refractive Lens Exchange). For those patients with Keratoconus, there may be a procedure to slow down or prevent the disease progression.
LASIK
In LASIK procedures, a flap of corneal tissue is created and then folded back. The cornea is the transparent dome-like structure that covers the iris and pupil of your eye. By creating a flap in the cornea, the surgeon is able to perform the laser vision correction treatment on the inner layer of the cornea and allows for a rapid visual recovery.
With Intralase (Bladeless LASIK), the surgeon uses a laser to create the corneal flap. This technology enables the surgeon the ability to customize the corneal flap for each individual patient. With the use of IntraLase, it may now be possible to treat those who were previously dismissed as non candidates for LASIK due to thin corneas.
www.KINGVISION.COM – The official LASIK Surgery Center of the Vancouver Canucks
PRK
Unlike LASIK, PRK surgery doesn’t require an incision in the cornea. During PRK surgery, the thin outer membrane of the cornea, called the epithelium, is loosened and then removed, exposing the surface of the thick central stromal layer. The laser then reshapes the stroma according to the patient’s refractive error. For someone with unusually thin corneas or who may not be a candidate for LASIK, for example, this procedure is advantageous.
ICL (aka Phakic IOLs)
ICL, or Phakic intraocular lenses (IOLs) are used in a promising refractive surgery procedure for highly nearsighted and highly farsighted patients.
In this procedure, a thin plastic lens is implanted inside the eye — either in front of the iris or behind the pupil (between the pupil and the eye’s natural crystalline lens).
Advantages of phakic IOLs include no thinning of the cornea and the ability to remove the implanted lens if problems arise or a change in the power of the lens is required. And because the eye’s natural lens is left intact, there is no loss in the patients ability to change focus at near.
RLE
Refractive lens exchange technique is essentially a cataract surgery procedure where the natural lens is removed from the eye and replaced with an accommodating or multifocal intraocular lens (IOL) implant, allowing for clear far away, intermediate, and close vision. It is currently used in patients, even without the presence of a cataract, with extreme farsightedness or nearsightedness, which are beyond the range of LASIK, and more commonly now, as a surgical solution to the need for reading glasses (presbyopia).
Please visit the following websites to learn more about Eye Surgery Procedures.
