Typical Cataract Surgery (Part 3 of 4)
0 (0 Likes / 0 Dislikes)
Hello. This is Dr David Richardson, "The Cataract Coach"
Welcome to the third segment of my four-part series on a typical cataract surgery.
You'll notice that it's pretty clear except for on the side there is a
little bit of haze. That's what we call the "cortical material."
and in a second you'll see that I start removing that
with two instruments. I use what's called a by bi-manual
irrigation and aspiration set.
Not everybody uses bi-manual
Later you'll see what is more typically used which is called coaxial.
But I find that the bi-manual gives me
better control
over the removal
of the cortical material. So first I put in the
irrigating handpiece
and then up for the top of the video you see the aspirating handpiece.
You'll notice that the irritating handpiece reflects light more
and that the aspirating handpiece tip looks more
like it's been sanded - and that's actually intentional
The tip actually has a rough edge that allows me to polish
the capsule itself. Not everybody will polish the capsule because it is very
thin and delicate. So, it's
a little stressful on the surgeon's heart to polish it.
Here you can see that I am polishing it
as I do believe that polishing the capsule
results in a more controlled healing response
as that capsule "shrink-wraps" around the lens and eventually
holds the lens in position.
So, this is relatively
straightforward, but because
you're dealing with such a delicate membrane
it's not a step that everyone takes
Now the eye is ready for some additional viscoelastic
I'm going to have the patient look straight ahead at the light.
Often times as the view clears up they start looking around.
So I just inform the patient to continue to look straight ahead
So in this case there was a little bit more polishing that I wanted to do
so I'm going to go ahead and polish this.
The next step you'll see I will place
viscoelastic into the capsular bag
and that frees up space
that I will then use to insert the lens.
So here's the viscoelastic.
It's transparent so you can't really see what's going on here
but I've just filled up the eye
with a viscoelastic gel
and this is going to let me place the lens in safely
which I will show you in the next and final segment of
"A Typical Cataract Surgery"
www.David-Richardson-MD.com