Tech promises goodbye to glasses in 10 minutes

CHENNAI: Since the age of seven, Senthil Kumar, a resident of Red Hills, could do nothing without his spectacles. The textile businessman, now 29, needed a lens of minus-6 power for both his eyes. After undergoing a laser procedure called SMILE (small incision lenticule extraction), he said goodbye to his glasses.

At 50,000 for an eye, SMILE comes with a heavier price tag than its predecessor Lasic (Laser-Assisted in situ Keratomileusis) that costs 15,000 per eye, but comes with many advantages. For one, the procedure lasts hardly ten minutes.

The eye surgeon uses a micro-incision using laser and creates a small lens (lenticule) inside the intact cornea, depending on the power that needs to be corrected. "We then remove the eye tissue from the interior of the cornea through minimal incision," said Dr Amar Agarwal of Agarwal Eye Hospitals, who performed the surgery.

The doctor said in Lasik, the surgeon had to fold back the cornea to perform the correction and the patient may feel dryness of the eye and glare. "SMILE has none of that," he said. The new procedure preserves the strength of the cornea and fewer nerves are damaged compared to Lasik. "Earlier we used to reject 30% of the patients as their cornea was not thick enough for Lasik. Now these patients can benefit from SMILE and can go home the same day," said the surgeon.                                              http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai