Index of University Press Releases

Aug. 7, 2006

Visionary procedure
Anne Polta West Central Tribune

WILLMAR — Extreme nearsightedness left JoAnn Monson legally blind in one eye. She’d considered LASIK surgery to improve her eyesight but was told her vision was too poor to make her a good candidate for the procedure.

Dr. Jeffery Fischer examines Jo Ann Monson after he performed an implatable lens surgery on the Willmar woman earlier that morning. Monson was diagnosed as being legally blind in the right eye prior to the surgery. One hour after the surgery, her vision was 20-25. Tribune photo by Bill Zimmer.

All of that changed recently when Monson became one of the first people at Family Eye and ENT Center to receive an implantable contact lens.

Patients like Monson finally have another option to help them see better, said Dr. Jeff Fischer, the ophthalmologist who did the procedure.

“It’ll be great for people who aren’t candidates for LASIK,” he said. “This is life-altering for them.”

The implantable lenses have been available in a number of countries for several years. They were approved for use in the United States earlier this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In a procedure that takes a matter of minutes, the tiny oblong lens — matched to the patient’s prescription like a contact lens — is inserted behind the iris and in front of the eye’s natural lens.

“What we are really doing is placing a lens implant into the eye to correct the vision as a contact lens or glasses would,” Fischer said. “You can’t feel it and you can’t see it.”

The implantable lenses are made of collamer, a combination of natural collagen and polymers engineered to be safely inserted in the eye and worn long term.

“The lens itself is thinner than a hair. It’s less than 50 microns thick in the center,” Fischer said.

LASIK — short for laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis — is the most frequently performed type of refractive surgery in the United States. Indeed, Jim Bach, the administrator of Family Eye and ENT Center, said there’s been a constant steady demand for the procedure, which employs excimer laser technology to reshape the surface of the cornea to correct vision.

It’s not for everyone, though. It doesn’t correct for extremes in nearsightedness or farsightedness, such as Monson had. It’s also not recommended for people with certain eye problems such as dry eyes or a thin cornea.

The implantable lenses are comparable in price to LASIK — about $3,000 per eye. One-third of the cost is for the lens itself, Fischer said.

Patients generally have one eye corrected at a time. Recovery time is usually minimal, Fischer said. “Their eyes may be a little scratchy, a little irritated for a few hours. Tomorrow it’s normal life again.”

One plus is that if problems develop, or the patient isn’t satisfied with the results, the implantable lens can be removed. That’s not an option with LASIK, which is irreversible.

“For people that are tentative and didn’t want something like LASIK, this gives them another option,” Fischer noted.

The demand for implantable lenses will probably never rival the demand for LASIK, but Fischer sees it as fitting into an important niche.

Although the option currently is reserved for people with extreme nearsightedness or farsightedness, it will likely be expanded within a few years to people who need less drastic vision correction, he said. “Then more and more people will be having it done.”

Family Eye and ENT Center is one of only a few centers outside the Twin Cities that offers the procedure.

It’s among several cutting-edge procedures that Fischer does for improving vision. For instance, the center has been one of only six sites in the United States to participate in clinical trials evaluating a new laser-therapy application for correcting farsightedness.

Fischer also is among the ophthalmologists who are testing newly upgraded software that refines the customization of LASIK laser surgery.

“You don’t have to have people going to the Cities,” Bach said. “Those are the types of things we’re doing right here.”