Wavefront Technology As Applied to Vision Correction - Is it For You?

Lasik surgery is perhaps the most common type of surgery that is performed in the US. Lasik is a type of surgery that changes the shape of the cornea to help correct the vision. Lasik surgery is a common procedure where a laser is guided to correct the cornea. However there are new developments in the Lasik eye surgery procedure and one major development has been the custom Lasik surgery.

Let us understand what custom lasik surgery means here. In the conventional world the Lasik eye surgery is used to correct the vision whereby using the laser the surgeon corrects the cornea. In the custom Lasik surgery the doctor uses the results from the laser to detect the aberrations and then use those results to direct the laser to a correct place on the cornea. In a nutshell, the laser is used for two things one is detecting the aberration and then uses the individual customized results to direct the laser.

Wavefront technology is not very new though it has been only a few years since the Wavefront technology has been used in the eye surgery area. Astronomers used to apply this technology to adjust the optical lenses of their telescopes. There is a reflecting mirror in the telescope which is constantly adjusted based on the information the Wavefront data sends about the deformities or aberration in the atmosphere.

The scenario is something similar in the human vision area where the Wavefront technology is used for doing two things. One is the detection of the aberrations and then other is corrections of the aberrations using this data received while detecting aberrations. Now the data received is different for every individual and hence customized. That is why in the Lasik world this is known as custom Lasik and the normal Lasik surgery is known as conventional Lasik surgery.

The manufactures who make this Wavefront responsive technology available to doctors are only four in the United States. These come with trade names like CustomCornea, CustomVue and Zyoptix. These three are customized Lasik solutions and the last one by the trade name Wave Light Allegretto does not use customized data but uses the data which was derived in the laboratory to guide the laser.

The Wavefront diagnosis is done using light which is sent into the eye using a specific pattern and if there are aberrations then light will come out in a wavy pattern. Then there are higher order aberrations which can only be detected by Wavefront diagnosis. Conventional eye exams can only detect lower order aberration particularly related to cylindrical and spherical aberrations.
So make sure to ask you doctor about conventional as well custom Lasik and evaluate your options.

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