Keeping an Eye Out for the Future
At Beach Eye Medical Group, we pride ourselves in providing top notch service with the best doctors and the best technology. With that in mind, we are always on alert for the newest advances in eye surgery. Just recently, surgeons in Britain have broken down the walls of what is possible: they pioneered a robotic surgery inside a patient’s eyes.
The Guardian reports that surgeons at the University of Oxford used a robot to overcome a real challenge. The surgeons were tasked with removing a super thin membrane (100th of a millimeter thick) from a patient’s retina to help restore normal eyesight. Without the new technology, the doctors would literally have to slow their own pulse just to accomplish this surgery between their own heartbeats that can create tiny hand movements and disrupt the surgery! With this surgical robot, the professors were able to remove the membrane accurately and complete the surgery. Dr. Samir Shah, our lead surgeon, believes that these types of robots will become indispensable in the future, helping eye surgeons to deal with microscopic and highly complex conditions.
The robot in question is named R2D2. Controlled by a computer with touchscreens and a joystick, R2D2 was able to enter the patient’s eye through a miniscule hole and remove the membrane by moving at a rate of 1/1,000th of a millimeter to achieve pinpoint accuracy. The patient has already reported improved eyesight in his follow ups. A dozen of other patients are in line to be operated by a team of eye surgeons and R2D2.
“We are excited to see what comes next. We hope to have an R2-D2 robot of our own one day! But until then, technology has improved significantly in the realm of cataract surgery. We are able to provide 10 times greater precision in cataract surgery using the latest laser as compared to manual surgery!”
If you would like your eyes treated by one of Orange County’s most experienced eye surgeons, please call (714) 965-9696 or send an email request.
