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The Potential Benefits
of Custom LASIK:
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Greater
chance of achieving 20/20 vision |
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Greater
chance of achieving better than 20/20 vision |
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Reduced
chance of losing best corrected vision |
| • |
Reduced
chance of losing visual quality or contrast sensitivity |
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Reduced
chance of night vision disturbances and glare |
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Increased
ability to restore best corrected vision if healing
problems develop |
Custom LASIK not only improves the potential for 20/20 vision, it has the potential to restore eyes to better than 20/20 vision. The visual system is actually capable of seeing 20/10 or better, that is letters twice as small as the 20/20 letters on an eyechart. Most people cannot see beyond 20/20 because of very subtle imperfections within their visual system. Wavefront technology allows the surgeon to first map these subtle visual imperfections and then develop a laser treatment plan to correct them. The first patients ever treated worldwide with Custom LASIK were in July 1999. Using Wavefront technology in the European trials a high percentage of patients treated with Custom LASIK were able to achieve better than 20/20 vision, and even those that did not, still appreciated improvements in their night vision and contrast sensitivity.
" Custom LASIK utilizes
Wavefront technology to correct not only the prescription
of the eye but to treat any subtle imperfections within
the visual system to improve both the safety and visual
outcome potential for patients."
Custom LASIK takes into account the curvature and
smoothness of each cornea, the thickness of the cornea,
any astigmatism and the pattern of that astigmatism,
and an individual's pupil size. Wavefront technology
analyzes the entire visual system from the corneal
surface through the crystalline lens of the eye, all
the way back to the retina. It actually looks at the
whole eye and the way in which that eye sees the world
to develop a truly personalized laser treatment plan.
Wavefront analysis occurs across the entire 6mm optical
center and represents a far more detailed assessment
of the visual system, optimizing any imperfections
to create the most ideal laser vision correction treatment
pattern specific for that individual. Therefore, Wavefront
technology not only provides more precise information
for the treatment plan but far more information than
ever before across several hundred points within the
central vision zone to be treated.
Currently, all patients with - 4.00 diopters of myopia,
for example, are treated with a standard LASIK program
for that degree of nearsightedness. However, each
patient may differ in their precise corneal shape,
their corneal thickness and their pupil size, as well
as any number of other variables not accounted for
routinely in standard LASIK programs. While standard
LASIK programs work wonderfully, the advantages of
Custom LASIK cannot be overstated. Custom LASIK will
create the ideal pattern for each patient taking a
multitude of variables into account. Instead of utilizing
just the information from your prescription and a
single central reading of a corneal curvature map,
Custom LASIK analyzes the entire visual system and
develops a Wavefront Map that truly analyzes the cornea
and visual system across hundreds and hundreds of
points within the central vision zone. Each point
mapped then guides the laser beam to provide the most
ideal vision correction profile.
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The next revolution in
LASIK laser vision correction surgery are customized
treatments, developing individualized software treatment
plans for each patient, based upon the very unique shape
and visual characteristics of that person's eye.
