Cape Coral Eye Center offering new cataract removal procedure
The Cape Coral Eye Center is one of a hundred facilities across the United States performing a new procedure to remove cataracts and replace a blurred lens with a state-of-the-art multifocal intraocular lens that stops patients from having to wear glasses again.
In 2008, Dr. Farrell C. Tyson, medical director of the Cape Coral Eye Center, participated in the Food and Drug Administration study on the effectiveness of the new Tecnis Multifocal IOL lens and now offers it locally.
The lens has been approved by the FDA and is implanted with a procedure that takes less than 10 minutes to perform. Once the surgery is completed, the new lens can improve a patient’s vision to at least 20/20, and in some cases far greater.
“As an investigator in the FDA’s clinical trials of the Tecnis Multi-focal IOL, I implanted the lens in both eyes of 38 patients,” wrote Tyson in an article to Cataract and Refractive Surgery Today. “None of them was allowed to undergo a postoperative refractive enhancement for 12 months.”
After the surgery Tyson found that 24 percent of his patients had a vision of 20/16 or better and 97 percent had 20/32. Overall, 87.5 percent of Tyson’s patients said they never wore glasses again.
He did report that a small number of patients complained of night glare from lights, but in most cases the problem corrected itself.
“Although patients did describe seeing glare and halos (primarily at night), only one patient was bothered enough by glare to state on a questionnaire that, given a second chance, he would not have chosen to have the Tecnis Multifocal IOL implanted in his second eye,” wrote Tyson.
According to Kimberly Smith, spokesperson for the Cape Coral Eye Center, many Cape residents who received the surgery in one or both eyes have testified to an increase in their quality of life.
Besides participating in the FDA study for the new lens, Tyson also designed a new blade to use during eye surgery. Most surgeons use steel blades to make incisions into the eye, but last year he designed a new diamond blade because it is much sharper than traditional steel.
“I use a diamond blade to make the incision. It is much sharper than a steel blade,” he said.
A single incision with the diamond blade is much safer for the patient and allows them to heal much faster after the surgery.
Tyson will participate in the production of training videos for other doctors wanting to utilize the new blade. It is distributed by Alcon Inc., one of the world’s leading eye care suppliers, whose sales topped out at $5.6 billion in 2007.
A number of officials from the Cape Coral Eye Center are currently attending a symposium in Chicago this week where Tyson is teaching a course on the new multifocal lens. Other eye surgeons from across the United States have visited the local center to observe the procedure.
The Cape Coral Eye Center is located at 4120 Del Prado Blvd. For information, visit: www.capecoraleyecenter.com.