Technology at The Wellington Eye Clinic

Why Technology Matters

The safety and effectiveness of laser eye surgery are primarily a result of two inputs: the expertise of the consultant and the quality of the technology used during the surgery. The Wellington Eye Clinic can proudly state that it provides a world class standard on both fronts, unmatched anywhere else in Ireland.

The Most Advanced Technology Available Worldwide

The Wellington Eye Clinic uses the most advanced lasers currently available for performing LASIK anywhere in the world. The Alcon’s  WaveLight Refractive Suite at the Wellington Eye Clinic is the only such “refractive suite” in Ireland and one of only five in the world currently.

 

WaveLight FS200

 

This allows the Wellington Eye Clinic to provide the fastest laser combination in Ireland which ensures a safer and more effective treatment for the patient. This means a better vision for you, achieved through a quicker recovery time.

How the WaveLight Refractive Suite Works

 

Below you will see a step-by-step explanation of how the suite works to produce the best possible results attainable for you. However please ask the surgeon about any aspects of the features of the laser technology at the Wellington Eye Clinic that are of particular interest to you during your consultation and beyond.

The WaveLight Refractive Suite consists of the fastest combination of lasers available anywhere in the world to perform a LASIK procedure; The EX500 is a 500 Hz excimer laser and the FS200 is a 200 kHz Femtosecond laser.

 

The treatment times are faster, and hence safer, than with any other laser combination. A flap (See Glossary (1)) is created in around 6 seconds with the FS200 and the EX500 excimer laser completes the reshaping of the cornea in less than 2 seconds per diopter (2).

 

The WaveLight EX500 is a very small 0.9mm flying spot laser with a 500 Hz repetition rate. This laser takes 10 – 20% of the time that most other lasers do to do similar treatments. Together with the Tscherning wavefront analyzer or through its in-built prolate (3) profile enhancement, the EX500 produces superb clinical outcomes.
The ablation profile (4) used is more optically natural than previous lasers.   This is just one of the ways that the Wellington Eye Clinic is different from any other eye clinic in Ireland.

 

This laser produces aspheric/prolate corneas (remembering that prolate is better than oblate (5)), to help reduce any induced higher-order aberrations (6), (7), especially spherical aberrations (8). This ensures the best visual quality in all lighting conditions. The WaveLight Allegretto EX500 excimer laser has a wide diameter treatment zone, thereby making night vision problems very unlikely.

The very latest WaveLight technology is to be found at the WEC.

Some of the enhanced safety features found on the EX500:

- Online pachymetry to ensure safety – this measures corneal thickness while the laser is working.

- 6-D active cyclo-rotational eye tracker ensuring that the eye is always in the correct position and that the eye is immediately recognized by the laser.

- The FS200 is the world’s fastest Femtosecond flap maker. It can also make channels for Intacs (9) for keratoconus (10) and do corneal transplant surgery.

- The flap parameters can be controlled on the laser’s computer.

- The 2 lasers are networked resulting in a higher degree of customization and safety than ever before.

Learn more about the Alcon Wavelight Refractive Suite

Scanning Spot Wavefront Optimized Laser

This latest generation laser system is the first laser specifically designed for Custom LASIK. There are a number of very unique features of this laser system: It is a scanning spot laser which has a larger treatment zone. The large treatment zone reduces the problem of glare at night. The rapid laser pulse rate fires at a speed that is much faster than standard lasers. The rapid pulse rate reduces the treatment time thereby reducing corneal dehydration and promotes faster healing. It has an advanced eye tracker (11) for greater accuracy and eliminates the problem of patient movement during surgery. The eye tracker automatically locks on the pupillary centre making the procedure less anxiety provoking for patients. This laser is equipped to perform Wavefront-optimized treatments, resulting in less induction of corneal distortions and spherical aberrations. When needed, this laser can perform different customized procedures to reduce higher order aberrations like spherical aberration and coma. These include profiles like wavefront-guided, topography-guided, Pentacam-guided and Custom-Q. There are some advanced treatment profiles in the pipeline that the laser is already programmed to do that will be coming online within the next year.

While patients of the Wellington Eye Clinic have enjoyed the benefits of standard LASIK and PRK since 1990, the latest technology, namely Custom LASIK, is now available. We, at the Wellington Eye Clinic, are the first (and only) clinic in Ireland to use this advanced laser with outstanding results.

True Optical Zones

The small spot creates the desired contour of the correction profile with utmost precision, thereby minimizing the total overall ablation depth. Combining a wavefront optimized ablation profile with small laser spots allows for the creation of a large effective optical zone (12) with a very small transition area.

The WEC has additional lasers too in the form of the 2nd fastest laser in Ireland. This is the WaveLight Allegretto Eye-Q 400 Hz laser.
We also have various microkeratomes (13) and will always use the technology most suited to your eyes.
We have raised the bar once more by investing in the best technology to ensure the best outcomes for our patients.

GLOSSARY

Flap – The flap that is created as part of the LASIK procedure

Diopter - A unit of measurement used to describe the degree of refractive error with respect to nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism.

Prolate – Having the polar diameter greater than the equatorial diameter; being steeper in the centre.

Ablation profile – The shape of the area of the cornea treated by the laser

Oblate - Having the equatorial diameter greater than the polar diameter; being flattened at the centre

Aberrations – Imperfections causing a failure to produce a good image

Higher order aberrations - Refractive errors, other than nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism that cannot be corrected with glasses or contact lenses.

Spherical aberrations - Optical effects that occur due to the increased refraction of light rays when they strike near an edge of a lens, in comparison with those that strike nearer the centre. Spherical aberration affects the sharpness of an image.

Intacs - Corneal implants which are half-rings that reshape the curvature of the cornea from within, enhancing the natural shape of the eye to correct mild to moderate nearsightedness and improve keratoconus.

Keratoconus - Abnormal cone-shaped protrusion of the cornea of the eye affecting 1 in a 1000 of the population

Eye Tracker – A device which realigns the Laser to any changes in the position of the eye

Optical Zone - The central area of the cornea that performs a majority of the refractive functions of the eye

Microkeratome - The instrument a surgeon uses to create a flap in the cornea during a LASIK procedure