New Solutions to Fix the Human Eyes

If we compared the eye to a camera, our cornea (transparent membrane and surface of the eye) would play the role of an objective lens. The iris, the iris, opening and closing briefly to allow light to pass. As for the lens, it would be a little zoom, essential to the development: indeed, at rest, the lens is extended and adjusted for distance. So you can see up close, but it must shrink with age, it loses its elasticity. The images developed on the retina arrive before being returned to the visual cortex of the brain via the optic nerve.

But unlike a camera, the eye is an organ so complex that no research team has not yet managed to fully reproduce artificially. Only some of its "components" can now be replaced. Very significant improvements are regularly reported and the last major beneficiaries are the sixties (and more) that sooner or later face a cloudy lens (cataract).

Cataract Removal

Changing a "component" within the eye is not new. "Everything is based on the observation, during the Second World War, as one fighter jet pilot who received bits of broken glass cockpit inside the eye showed no rejection of material, which was very well tolerated. This led to the idea that the inside of the eye was able to tolerate lenses. And, over the years, considerable progress has been made: after the implants can correct distance vision already know that all those cataract surgery for years, appeared implants bifocal correction (equivalent lenses bifocals), then multifocal implants. Over 450,000 replacements performed each year crystalline, third today are multifocal lenses" said one eye expert.

Made up of a crystalline already suffered a cataract, these implants last generation (not always supported by Social Security) can both solve the problem of cataract and find a good near vision, intermediate and far away. Indeed, other visual disturbances - myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism - are also corrected.

"Thanks to these advances, a sexagenarian can now find a very good vision without glasses or contact lenses, and, thanks to an intervention during a quarter of an hour, performed as an outpatient with an incision of less than two millimeters. We can therefore speak of accomplishment! " Says one eye expert. And if, in the field of cataract extraction, most progress has been made, you can still rely on technology to change the ability of implants to provide maximum visual comfort.

Opening Ring

The only downside to this innovation- "the lens cannot be replaced, especially in the large myopic, when there is already an early cataract because if it is removed too early, the risk of retinal detachment is not zero, "says eye doctors. This is why some ophthalmologists offer among the big still young myopic whose cornea is too thin to benefit from laser refractive surgery, ask front of the lens (not in place) a corrective lens so that the patient happens glasses and contact lenses.

This solution is not feasible in the hyperopic eye which is too small. And it is proposed as a last resort in the large myopic because an implant before the lens is not without risk of early cataract (friction), glaucoma (increased pressure by at inside the eye), or infection.

"It is also possible to put a small lens correction of presbyopia within a healthy cornea, or a small ring pierced in its center (as if the pupil was constantly tightened) to increase the depth of field. These devices can be offered intra corneal alternative to laser refractive surgery. Advantage: the technique is reversible. Disadvantage: this intervention is still confidential (usually reserved for presbyopia cannot be treated with laser) and therefore there is a lack of long-term decline. Few cases of scarring has caused a loss of vision have been reported. A longer-term evaluation is essential, one eye expert said.