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New Type Of Contact May Improve Vision
Date: Jan 19, 2005
Contributor: Jane Svenson
NEW YORK (CBS) Thirty-million people in the U.S. wear contact lenses. Now more people can benefit, even those with hard-to-treat vision problems.
Stephen Coppola hopes a new type of contact will improve his vision.
“There is a sweet spot where things get pretty good,” says Stephen holding a contact
He has keratoconus in his left eye. The cornea is abnormally cone-shaped instead of smooth and spherical.
“It is quite different than what most people see with normal myopia or whatever. It is more like looking through a dirty window than an out-of-focused lens,” says Coppola.
Conventional contact lenses don’t help. So Stephen entered a study at the University of Rochester, where researchers are working on customized contacts.
“The reason we say customized is because each person has a different type of aberration with different amount,” says Geunyoung Yoon, PH.D.
Doctor Yoon is developing the technology for the new lenses.
“The first step is to measure their optical defects using an advanced technique called wave front sensing technique,” says Dr. Yoon.
Patients sink their teeth into their dental impression to keep still...while sophisticated equipment maps out every last imperfection in their eyes.
Dr. Yoon uses the pattern and a laser to carve out the patient’s very own soft contact lens.
Researchers say, in the future, eye doctors may offer customized contacts to all their patients - even those with normal vision problems.
“We can measure it, you know, next door. We can make a customized contact lens and then they can just try it within an hour, “ says Dr. Yoon.
Right now, it’s early in the study, so it will be a while before Stephen “sees” results.
Dr. Yoon says the ultimate goal is to customize the contact, then surgically implant it in the eye. No more putting them in, taking them out, or cleaning them every day
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