Wavefront-Guided Technology
What is Wavefront-Guided Technology?
Wavefront optics is the science behind measuring and correcting the distortions in optical systems such as telescopes, microscopes, and binoculars. The Hubble Space Telescope, for example, corrects for distortions to give us a clearer picture of the universe.
Wavefront technology generates a meticulous map of your eye’s aberrations (irregularities) by passing a beam of safe laser light through your eye. Light reflected out from the retina passes through the crystalline lens, cornea, and finally through an array of tiny lenses in a wavefront analyzer that focus and record the image on a digital CCD camera. The resulting data is used to generate a customized map, plotting high and low order visual aberrations. This information is transferred to the Star S4 IR Laser to produce a highly precise series of pulses to your cornea. The final result is a personalized treatment providing you with the best possible outcome.
The Kelowna Laser Vision medical team believes that all patients deserve the very best treatment that technology and expertise can offer, so we have adopted Custom Wavefront Guided surgery as our standard. This advanced technology allows physicians to customize treatment according to the unique characteristics of each patient’s eyes, unlike older traditional methods that base treatment on prescription information similar to that used for glasses and contact lenses. Clinical studies show that the Custom™ Wavefront Guided procedure can potentially produce better vision than is possible with glasses or contact lenses.
Fact box:
More than 80% of all custom wavefront guided procedures performed in North America are performed on Star lasers (previously known as VISX), they are the clear laser of choice for surgeons who provide advanced treatments.
How does Custom Wavefront-Guided Technology relate to my vision?
Each eye has imperfections that cause blurred vision. The low order imperfections are called refractive errors and include nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism. These can be corrected by glasses, contact lenses or conventional laser surgery. There are also other imperfections called high order aberrations which include spherical aberration, coma, trefoil, and quadrafoil. These can also cause blurred vision or poor quality vision under certain conditions.
In the past there was no way to measure or correct high order aberrations. Recently, however, laser technology has advanced to the point where refractive errors caused by both low and high order aberrations can be treated by removing microscopic amounts of corneal tissue with an excimer laser. Only Custom Wavefront Guided Laser Vision Correction allows surgeons to measure and treat both types of aberrations in the eye.
What are the Advantages of Wavefront Technology?
State-of-the-art AMO Custom Wavefront Guided Laser Vision Correction employs Wavefront-Guided technology to map the specific nuances of each patient’s vision. The analysis produces a Customized laser treatment that treats both low and high order refractive problems. This higher degree of precision has allowed people to achieve vision beyond what was possible with glasses, contact lenses, or older, more traditional conventional laser treatments.
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Advanced Custom Wavefront Guided
|
Wavefront
Optimized |
Conventional
("Traditional or Standard") |
|
| Custom Treatment: individual for every patient. |
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
| Uses Iris Registration to rotationally align treatment. |
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
| Treats low order aberrations (glasses and contact lenses treat these, commonly known as near/farsightedness and astigmatism). |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Treats high order aberrations (related to clarity of vision). |
Yes
|
No.
|
No
|
| Treats all high order aberrations including spherical aberration, coma, trefoil, and quadrafoil. |
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
| Wavefront (WaveScan) measurements taken during diagnosis. |
Yes
|
Maybe
|
No
|
| Price |
Custom treatment/advanced technology therefore higher than optimized or conventional
|
Usually slightly higher than conventional
|
Lowest (price can depend on laser technology, prescription and clinic)
|
Fact box:
With Custom Wavefront-Guided Laser Correction:
- More patients attain 20/20 vision than with traditional procedures.
- Many patients attain vision superior to 20/20 vision.
- Many patients note improved night vision compared to glasses or contact lenses.
- There is less chance of noticing night glare or halos compared to traditional procedures.
- There is reduced necessity for repeat treatments.
Origins and Science of Wavefront Technology
Wavefront technology was originally developed for use in high powered telescopes to reduce distortions when viewing distant objects in space. It was found that a single lens power could not clearly image an object in space due to localized atmospheric distortion causing areas of different focal powers all within the same image. Adaptive optics divides the area of one large lens into many small lenses, called lenslets, so that each can be focused clearly. The overall image is then recreated from each of the clear lenslet images, thus bringing the entire image into focus. The reconstruction of the individual lenslet images is called the wavefront image.
The human eye focuses images in a similar way to telescopes. With a telescope, the general focus (low order aberration) is brought into alignment with the overall power adjustment. Then, local atmospheric distortions (high order aberrations) are focused with adaptive optics, or wavefront technology. In the eye, the overall focus (low order aberration) can be corrected with glasses, contact lenses, or conventional laser eye surgery. However, the image focused by the human eye is also subject to local distortions, called high order aberrations. These are quantified with a wavefront aberrometer (WaveScan) and displayed as a wavefront image so that we can assess the quality of image that your eye can focus. This information is used to plan your treatment to include high order aberration correction, customizing your treatment to give you the best quality of vision possible. Only Custom Wavefront Guided Laser Treatment can treat both low and high order aberrations.
More surgeons in North America use AMO’s Custom Wavefront Guided technology for their patients than any other technology because clinical studies have demonstrated that Wavefront-Guided treatment can potentially produce better vision than is possible with glasses or contact lenses and patients can achieve better overall clarity of vision and better night vision than with previous technologies.
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