Complicated Glaucoma Surgery Becomes Much Easier

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Typically, glaucoma is a disease that occurs as one gets older. And, much like high blood pressure, it's a disease that seldom exhibits obvious symptoms. This is one reason why it is so hard to detect. Glaucoma can stay hidden in the background for years, as it silently works to destroy your sight. And, unfortunately, the damage has pretty much been done by the time your realize something is wrong.

Glaucoma is not just one disease, it is several. It refers to any vision problem caused by increased pressure inside the eye that causes the optic nerves to be destroyed. Currently, over thirty million people in the world suffer from this eye disease. Sadly, as of yet, there is no cure for glaucoma. There are, however, treatments that can be used in an attempt to control it's progression and prevent further damage to the eye.

The most common forms of treatments are either medications or surgery. Most doctors will take the conservative approach and use drugs as their first choice of treatments. If medications prove to be ineffective in relieving the eye pressure or if for some reason the patient cannot take medications - (for example if the woman is pregnant) - surgery may be the only option.

It's a sad fact of life that many people, all over the world, are forced to forego surgeries that they really need simply because of the high cost of surgeries these days. After all, it requires many years to train a competent eye surgeon. And some years of practice after that before a competent surgeon becomes a skilled surgeon. And even with a skilled surgeon, surgical and post-surgical complications occur much too frequently. In fact, there are very few surgeons in the world that have the training and expertise required to relieve eye pressure using surgery.

Here is why is the surgery so complicated. In order to let the excess liquid causing the eye pressure to drain from the eye requires the surgeon to remove part of the wall of the eye. Remove too little and the liquid will not drain and the pressure will not be relieved. Remove too much of the wall and the eye will lose too much of it's protection.

And this is what makes a new technology for treating glaucoma patients so exciting. Earlier this year, IOPtima, an Israeli company developed a new laser technology that promises to simplify glaucoma surgery to the level where it doesn't take a skilled surgeon to perform it. Once trained to use the new technology, any regular, competent eye surgeon can perform this operation. This is revolutionary.

If the longer clinical trials go as smoothly as the earlier trial, a typical eye surgeon will be able to perform the previously daunting glaucoma operation as smoothly and easily as cataract operations are now performed. This should significantly bring down the surgical costs so that more patients can afford it. It should also place the ability to perform the operation into thousands of more surgeons throughout the world, making glaucoma surgery more accessible as well.

Using laser for eye surgery is not new. They have been used in the United States for a decade to correct the vision of near and far sighted patients. What is new, however, is applying laser technologies towards the treatments of other eye diseases such as glaucoma.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

For more about the issues involved in laser eye surgery such as information on laser eye surgery and laser eye surgery risk, please visit our website.

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