Dr. Bennett First Ophthalmologist in U.S. to Perform New Corneal Transplant Surgery

Dr. Donald Bennett of Bennett & Bloom Eye Centers recently performed the first four Ziemer Femto LDV™ laser assisted DSEK corneal transplant surgeries in the United States on June 18, 2010. Only 15 other cases had been performed worldwide previously, with those cases being done in Germany and Switzerland. This is also the first time that four of these surgeries have been performed in a single day.

Approximately 40,000 cornea transplants are performed each year in the United States. The cornea is the clear ‘watch crystal’ in the front of the eye through which light passes into the eye. In certain diseases the innermost layer of the cornea wears our causing it to swell, reducing the patient’s vision. DSEK, an acronym for Descemet’s Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty, is a type of corneal transplant surgery that involves removing that defective layer from the patient’s eye and replacing it with the inner portion of a donor cornea (or a graft).

Traditionally, corneal transplantation was a highly invasive surgery in which the entire central part of the diseased cornea was replaced with the entire central part of the donor cornea. As opposed to those full thickness corneal transplants that required many stitches, had visual recovery times of up to one year and could need the use of hard contact lenses to achieve optimal vision postoperatively, DSEK is done through a relatively small clear cornea incision and has a visual recovery time of just three to six months.

DSEK grafts currently are created with a mechanical microkeratome with a blade to separate that inner portion from the rest of the donor cornea. That technique produces relatively thick grafts. After healing patients recover vision to the level of 20/40. By using the Ziemer Femto LDV™ femtosecond laser (a modified version of the laser used in All-Laser-LASIK), Dr. Bennett was able to create much thinner grafts – about half the thickness of what was previously done. “Presumably these thin grafts will give our patients much better vision,” said Dr. Bennett.

Werner Bernau, Ph.D., a vice-president of Ziemer and the scientist who developed the Ziemer Femto LDV™ laser and its application for DSEK, flew in from Switzerland to observe Dr. Bennett’s cases.

“All of the surgeries went well and the patients’ eyes looked great at one day and one week following surgery. Still, we will have to wait a few months to see just how good their vision will get,” Dr. Bennett said. “This is really exciting. It may very well be the beginning of a new revolution in the way everyone does DSEK corneal surgery—just as advanced lasers changed the way we did LASIK.”