Femto marking of the cornea as a guide for toric lens implant

Session Details

Session Title: Pseudophakic IOLs: Toric I

Session Date/Time: Saturday 10/09/2016 | 16:00-18:00

Paper Time: 17:36

Venue: Hall C2

First Author: : R.Bellucci ITALY

Co Author(s): :    M. Cargnoni                    

Abstract Details

Purpose:

Toric lens alignment is usually obtained by manual corneal marking or by complex systems attached to the operating microscope. The former is considered imprecise, while the latter involves some complication of surgery and increase in cost. We describe a new technique to mark the cornea for toric IOL implantation, using the same femtosecond laser employed to assist cataract surgery.

Setting:

Specialized Medical Centre, Verona, Italy

Methods:

A photograph taken by a smart phone with an accelerometer is used to record the angle of limbal marks, natural or intentionally made. After docking the eye, the angle of these marks is used as reference to detect on the screen the correct IOL alignment axis. Two opposite marks 1x0.5 mm are produced on the cornea by the femto laser, to serve as a guide for IOL alignment at surgery, quickly disappearing thereafter. Ten toric trifocal IOLs implanted with this procedure were compared as for alignment with 10 similar IOLs previously implanted with manual marking of the axis.

Results:

Some natural limbal marking was found in 4 eyes, and 6 eyes required pencil marking. One month after surgery, IOL rotation was 2.5±2.12 degrees with the femto alignment method, and was 5.8±4.46 degrees with the manual alignment method (P=0.049). Besides the small improvement in the mean misalignment, the standard deviation of the values was reduced. No lens was more than 6 degrees misaligned.

Conclusions:

Femto marking of the cornea to be used as a guide for toric IOL alignment appears a useful technique in the correction of astigmatism during cataract surgery. It was better than manual marking in this study, and may compare favourably with more complex alignment methods.

Financial Disclosure:

... receives consulting fees, retainer, or contract payments from a company producing, developing or supplying the product or procedure presented