First laser eye surgery to give patients ‘supervision’ – with better than 20/20 vision after surgery

Patients with poor vision can achieve ‘supervision’ thanks to the first ever personalized eye surgery.

The groundbreaking technology, which debuted in Britain yesterday, creates a digital 3D clone of a patient’s eyes.

The treatment is then tailored to their specific needs, achieving better results than current standard prescriptions for laser eye surgery with glasses.

Experts believe this could become the standard treatment for thousands of patients treated for vision loss every year.

The digital clone, called an ‘Eyevatar’, also duplicates how an individual sees.

This allows surgeons to virtually ‘reoperate many times to perfect the results’ before performing the surgery on the patient.

Amazingly, studies have shown that the treatment – which costs £6,500 for both eyes – can result in better than 20/20 vision.

Tests showed it had a 100 percent success rate in achieving 20/20 or “normal vision,” eliminating the need for glasses.

But half achieved vision of 20/12.5, according to findings published in the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.

This means that they can see at a distance of 6 meters what a person with normal vision should see at a distance of 3.5 meters.

About eight percent scored 20/10 or ‘perfect vision’, which typically only affects one percent of the population.

Early results suggest it may also improve night vision – something never seen before with laser eye surgery.

Ophthalmologist David Allamby, who performed the procedure on six patients at London’s Focus Clinic yesterday, said it had the potential to ‘transform’ corrective eye surgery.

One of the first patients to benefit is Rebecca Hackworth, who needed reading glasses to see text clearly.

The communications director, 50, was also nearsighted, making things blurry in the distance.

Mr Allamby said he expects the results will mean she can now see perfectly.

He said: ‘I think it went really well. I treated her right eye only with ray-tracing-guided LASIK to give her what we call mixed vision.

‘Her right eye can see very clearly at a distance, and her left eye has mild myopia, which allows her to read without glasses.

‘The result is clear distance and reading without glasses.’

He added: ‘The technology has been in development for almost two decades and is a quantum leap forward.

‘It means that we can now perform the operation virtually and treat your eye many times in the computer to refine and remove abnormalities.

‘The new ray-tracing procedure understands these optical imperfections and can adjust the laser treatment pattern to correct them.

‘The implication is that this raises the bar for what we can achieve with laser eye surgery and will become the new standard for what patients expect from treatment.’

The technology is used as part of laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK), the most common form of laser eye surgery in Britain.

This uses lasers to reshape the cornea to correct vision problems such as nearsightedness and astigmatism, using a uniform prescription, in the same way glasses do.

With this precision treatment, a new Sightmap scanner first creates an ‘eye avatar’ of a patient’s eye.

The digital twin then tracks up to 2,000 light rays to determine their path as they are refracted and focused by the cornea and lens in the eye.

The laser eye treatment can then be adjusted so that all rays are properly focused on the retina, achieving the best possible vision.

Yesterday Britain became the first country in Europe to offer the procedure routinely, at the clinic popular with celebrities.

Mr Allamby added: ‘It’s really exciting technology. If it works as shown in the studies, it will make a big difference for many people.

‘I expect about three-quarters of patients will achieve 20/12, and about 20 percent will achieve 20/10 binocularly.

“That’s surprising, considering less than one percent of people can see this clearly.”