Dr. Santamaria presents some innovative advancements in cataract surgery and intraocular lenses in the videos below...

The Story

There have been great advancements since the early days of cataract surgery. Before, surgeons would perform "Extra-capsular" cataract surgery where a patient's eye was opened with a large incision to remove the cataract. This meant that the patient would require sutures (that could result in astigmatism) and long and uncomfortable post operative periods which included several days in the hospital and the placement of bags around the patient's head to keep it in place.

Dr. Santamaria performs the most advanced cataract surgery procedure, "Topical Clear Cornea", which involves numbing the eye with drops and making a 3mm incision on a side of the cornea determined by a number of calculations made prior to surgery. This incision is self-healing, and does not require sutures. This means it is a painless, bloodless surgery that takes from 10 to 15 minutes.

After the incision is done, the cataract is broken up by an ultrasonic oscillating probe and suctioned out of the eye. Then a foldable intraocular lens or implant is inserted into the eye to take the place of the natural lens and focus light on the retina. This method is called Phacoemulsification.

At the beginning, doctors used the Monofocal lenses that allow the patients to see either near or far without glasses, but not both. Then came the Multifocal lenses like ReStor® and ReZoom™, made of concentric rings made up with both the patient's distance and near prescriptions and permit the patients to see both near and far without glasses most of the time.

Then, a couple of years ago, a new type of intraocular lens was approved by the FDA: the accommodating intraocular lens, crystalens®, currently in its third generation. This IOL uses the ciliary body, the set of muscles that moves the natural crystalline lens back and forth, to allow the lens to focus just like the natural lens used to do when the person was 18 years old.