PRESBYOND® Laser Blended Vision Goes Global
Now here’s the biggest headline: “PRESBYOND® Laser Blended Vision Goes Global”. And behind it the news that Dr Dan’s invention was introduced at the ESCRS in Barcelona and has subsequently been fully launched at the ophthalmology congress in San Francisco.
The London Vision Clinic pioneered the PRESBYOND® Laser Blended Vision technique which has led to so many of us ‘patients-of-a-certain-age’ happily binning our reading glasses. Most of us spec-free patients give little consideration to the years of work and scientific research that has gone into our liberating procedure.
Dr Dan originally moved from America to Europe with his young family in order to help the German laser company Asclepion Meditec develop their newest generation of excimer laser at the time – the MEL 80. Meditec as a company was the leading innovator in the field of commercial excimer lasers for Laser Eye Surgery – they made the very first commercially available laser for short-sightedness (myopia) in 1986, and continued to amass an impressive list of global ‘firsts’ including the first treatment for farsightedness (hyperopia), the first to treat mixed-astigmatism, the first to produce a wavefront-guided laser and the first to produce a topography-guided laser.
In 2002, Carl Zeiss, the over 170-year-old world leading optical engineering company merged their ophthalmic laser division with Asclepion Meditec to form Carl Zeiss Meditec. Carl Zeiss Meditec was the first laser manufacturer to introduce closed-loop energy stabilisation – the stability of laser energy affects the accuracy of treatment. The MEL 90 has since been proven by the US FDA trials to be the most accurate laser platform. This laser is, without doubt, a top end of the market device and one that you won’t find in high street clinics.
Since 2001 Dr Dan has been Carl Zeiss’ lead clinical consultant working alongside engineers on various projects. In 2009 Carl Zeiss implemented the PRESBYOND® Laser Blended Vision treatment into their laser systems which became commercially available. Prof Reinstein has been treating patients exclusively with this since 2004. But now any laser eye clinic with a MEL 90 and the crucial surgical technique and skill can offer their patients Dr Dan’s invention through the Laser Blended Vision software. Undoubtedly it will be super-popular and set to replace the older and not so easily tolerated laser “monovision” operation where one eye focuses exclusively at near and the other exclusively at distance.
So how does Dr Dan feel about his “baby” going out into the world?
“I am thrilled and delighted that it will soon be everywhere”, he says.
“That’s the beautiful thing about research – you get to help your own patents straight away and then the rest of the world.”
Image Source: NASA.gov