Dr. Lucio Buratto was the first eye specialist worldwide to use laser technology in the correction of sight defects. He pioneered the techniques and introduced them to his surgical procedures in the late Eighties. Since then, across the world, more than 50 million people have been successfully treated for sight defects such as myopia, astigmatism and hyperopia.
The excimer laser is an instrument used in eye surgery. When the UV light it admits hits the delicate tissues of the eye, it produces an effect known as ablation: the more superficial layers of the tissue hit by the rays are disintegrated and vaporized.
Ablation – in addition to being precise to less than a thousandth of a millimeter – is “selective”, meaning that the process will only occur in the area of the cornea chosen for treatment, at a predetermined depth and width, thanks also to the fact that the laser is controlled by a computer programmed and managed by the eye surgeon.
The corneal surface of the eye is reshaped to correct the sight defect. Using a laser ensures treatments of an almost perfect quality, with consequently extremely precise refractive results. Thanks to the eye tracker system, the laser follows the eye: if the eye movements are excessive, the laser action will be interrupted; however, if there are micromovements, work will proceed without errors.
Both of these procedures can produce extremely successful results in the treatment of myopia, hyperopia e astigmatism.
The femtosecond laser emits coherent light rays within short time spans (billionths of a second) and these target very small areas of tissue with the extremely high energy rays; these rays rapidly vaporize the tissue. In substance, the femtosecond eye laser emits a light beam that replaces a metallic blade in the cutting procedures with the added advantage of greater precision and total safety.
Thanks to the femtosecond laser, for more than ten years at the clinic Centro Ambrosiano Oftalmico, the surgical procedure has been performed without the use of metal blades. In other clinics, the now-obsolete microkeratome is still being used.
The principal application of the femtosecond laser is in refractive surgery, in LASIK. However, it also has an important role in the field of cataract surgery.
