Devin Prabhakar - Google+

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Micro Phaco

Till a few decades back cataract surgery used to mean prolonged bed rest and absence from work. Phacoemulsification made cataract surgery very safe with fast recovery. It cut short admission and enabled a day care procedure with minimum disruption in a patient’s life. With the phacomachine we are able to make a small opening of 2.8 mm to extract the 9mm cataract and implant a 6mm intraocular lens. This small opening gave the name “key hole” to the surgery.

As in many things in life, smaller is better, is the dictum in most all surgeries and especially so in eye surgeries. The search for a safer, faster and easier surgery resulted in micro phaco cataract surgery. This has been aptly nicknamed “pinhole surgery” as the incision size was further reduced by 40%.

The main advantage of the much smaller incision is the faster healing and therefore quicker rehabilitation to the patient. Smaller incision means more control to the surgeon during surgery as the wound is more stable. Thus the patients safety and the surgeons comfort level is enhanced.

The surgery is ideally suited for people wanting to start working soon after surgery. As the procedure is safer than conventional phaco patients with higher risk profile like diabetics and nephrology patients should ideally opt for this procedure. This would be the best option for complicated and difficult surgeries. The only disadvantage of Micro Phaco is that it needs sophisticated, computerised, ultrasound machines which can give pulsed power to enable the entire lens to be pulverised and removed by a thin needle.

Microphaco has made the already painless and safe 15 minute phaco procedure into a much faster computer controlled ultra precision surgery with very predictable results. 

Though the safety profile is greatly enhanced the procedure has the same complications as phaco surgery; a list of which can be found on http://divyaprabha.in/consent-for-cataract-surgery