In order to perform refractive surgery, fs-laser pulses of 130-fs pulse duration were focused into animal cornea. By focusing the radiation down to spot-sizes of 5 micrometers , very precise cuts could be achieved inside the treated eyes, accompanied with minimum collateral damage to the tissue by thermal or mechanical effects. Due to these low side effects, micrometers -cutting precisions at preparing of corneal flaps and lenticules can be achieved. Thus, animal studies with 8 living rabbits were performed, in which intrastromal lenticules and flaps were created and extracted. Wound healing reactions were studied by histo- pathological analysis of the treated eyes in intervals at one, 7, 14 and 28 days after surgery. The treated eyes showed mild wound healing reactions with comparable results to what is known from Excimer-LASIK. Moreover the use of the fs-laser offered new possibilities in preparation of corneal flaps, providing advantages to the use of the mechanical keratome.

Date Published: 13 June 2002
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 4611, Ophthalmic Technologies XII, (13 June 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.470587

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4611:
Ophthalmic Technologies XII
Fabrice Manns; Per G. Soederberg; Arthur Ho, Editor(s)