Officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved the VisuMax Femtosecond Laser, which is designed for small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) procedures to decrease or end nearsightedness.
The treatment is specifically approved for patients who are 22 and older. Not all patients are SMILE candidates; people must carefully read the patient labelling and meet with an eye care professional to discuss what to expect from the treatment.
“This approval expands the surgical treatment options available to patients for correcting nearsightedness,” Dr. Malvina Eydelman, director of Ophthalmic and Ear, Nose and Throat Devices, in FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said.
Nearsightedness, also called myopia, causes people to clearly see objects that are close to them but makes distant objects blurry. This is a common vision condition that makes the eye focus light directly before the retina. This may be because of the cornea’s shape or because the eyeball is too long.
This laser is designed to remove a tiny amount of tissue in the eye. In turn, it will permanently change the shape of the cornea. The fast, short-pulsed (femtosecond) laser cuts inside the cornea, taking out a disc-shaped portion of the tissue. It is removed through a tiny cut in the cornea’s surface, which changes the cornea’s shape and resolves patients’ nearsightedness.
