Laser assisted cataract surgery
AssigneeExcel-Lens, Inc.
InventorDavid Mordaunt
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Laser assisted cataract surgery methods and devices utilizing one or more treatment laser beams to create a shaped opening in the anterior lens capsule of the eye when performing a capsulorrhexis procedure. A light absorbing agent may optionally be added onto or into the lens capsule tissue, and the treatment laser wavelength selected to be strongly absorbed by the light absorbing agent. Alternatively, the treatment laser wavelength may be selected to be absorbed or strongly absorbed by the tissue itself, in which case no additional light absorbing agent need be used. Visualization patterns produced with one or more target laser beams may be projected onto the lens capsule tissue to aid in the procedure. The devices may be attached to or integrated with microscopes.
Claims19
A device for creating an opening in the anterior lens capsule of the eye, the device comprising:
- a treatment laser outputting a treatment laser beam;
- a visualization laser outputting a visualization laser beam;
- a two-dimensional scanner on which the treatment laser beam and the visualization laser beam are incident;
- and
- a scanner controller controlling the two-dimensional scanner, the scanner controller having one or more programmed scan profiles for predetermined treatment patterns in which the treatment laser beam is scanned to form a closed curve at the anterior lens capsule and one or more corresponding programmed scan profiles for predetermined visualization patterns in which the visualization laser beam is scanned to form the predetermined visualization pattern at the anterior lens capsule;
- wherein the treatment laser beam has a wavelength absorbed by Trypan Blue or Indocyanine Green, a spot size at the anterior lens capsule of less than 300 microns, and a power of 300 milliwatts to 3000 milliwatts, and absorption of 35% or more of the treatment laser beam power at the anterior lens capsule causes thermal denaturing of collagen in the anterior lens capsule resulting in thermal tissue separation along the closed curve to form the opening without ablating anterior lens capsule tissue;
- and
- wherein for each programmed scan profile for the treatment laser beam the corresponding programmed scan profile for the visualization laser beam scans the visualization laser to form a visualization pattern at least a portion of which represents the size and location of a perimeter boundary of the opening to be created in the anterior lens capsule by the treatment laser beam and matches at least a portion of the perimeter boundary, the perimeter boundary of the opening differing in size and location from the closed curve of the corresponding treatment pattern and having a larger diameter than the closed curve of the corresponding treatment pattern.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.