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Feature Article #1

Denise Van Outen treated at FOCUS Laser Vision in London

I recently treated Denise Van Outen at my clinic and you can see the full story in today’s Daily Mail. We also made the front page with a leader. The phone’s are ringing non-stop!
You can watch Denise in the video below, or click here to see the full story on Denise Van Outen and her [...]

Dave Allamby | January 27th, 2009 | Continued

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Feature Article #2

Laser eye surgery is effective for reading vision

SEVERAL approaches to LASIK are effective in the treatment of reading vision problems (presbyopia) for patients with otherwise normal distance vision, or long or short sight, according to studies presented at the 12th Winter Refractive Meeting of the ESCRS.

Dave Allamby | June 26th, 2008 | Continued

About this Site

LASIK Truth is about giving LASIK patients and potential patients the truth about laser eye surgery. It’s the inside angle about everything you need to know.  It is written by Dr. Dave Allamby, Medical Director at FOCUS Laser Vision.
While there is lots of good information out there it is mixed up with plenty of misinformation, omissions, [...]

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LASIK vision trials – FDA results for laser systems used in the UK

Pending review

Laser Eye Clinics’ Prices Vary Hugely

You are interested in laser eye surgery. You have been doing what everyone else does first, which is search through the websites of various laser eye surgery clinics including the big three chains: Ultralase, Optical Express and Optimax, plus independent clinics such as FOCUS Laser Vision, Centre for Sight, London Vision Clinic etc.

The first thing you notice is that some clinics outline some or all their prices, while others give a headline price and give more details after you contact the clinic directly. One very handy site that can help you get all that information quickly is www.lasik-eyes.co.uk where patients can post independent reviews of their experiences at all of the UK’s laser eye clinics plus the price they paid for surgery.

There is a huge variation in the prices paid at UK clinics. Take a look at the following chart of London laser eye correction clinics showing the average price paid (total price for both eyes) to date as found on lasik-eyes.co.uk on April 15th 2009.

Prices paid for both eyes for laser eye treatment vary from around £1,500 up to over £4,300! My own clinic incidentally, FOCUS Laser Vision, is the second best priced centre in London.

But what does this mean for you? What about quality? Do you get what you pay for? Or do prices not correlate well with the quality of the surgery, vision result or service?

Denise Van Outen – Video of her laser eye surgery

Watch Denise in her own words talking about her recent laser eye surgery at FOCUS Laser Vision. Denise explains about her problems wearing glasses or contact lenses while working as a TV presenter and what led up to her decision to go ahead with laser eye surgery.

Denise opted for the most advanced treatment of Z-LASIK, which is blade free using two lasers for maximum accuracy and safety, plus wavefront optics to give her an outstanding quality of vision.

Click on play below to see the video:

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Congratulations Denise!

We were delighted to treat TV presenter and actress Denise Van Outen in January and she popped in the other day for her check up. You may have seen Denise recently on TV as she and several other celebrities decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief. Denise has suffered with glasses for years but the climb was a real push to have laser eye surgery – she did not want to rely on glasses or lenses at the high altitude. After hearing good things about FOCUS from friends she finally decided to go ahead and have treatment.

Denise did brilliantly to reach the top of Kilimanjaro, along with all the other celebs. Red Nose Day has so far raised a whopping £65,000,000 and continues to make a major difference in its 21st year.

Denise Van Outen treated at FOCUS Laser Vision in London

I recently treated Denise Van Outen at my clinic and you can see the full story in today’s Daily Mail. We also made the front page with a leader. The phone’s are ringing non-stop!
You can click here to see the full story on Denise Van Outen and her laser eye surgery in London at the Daily Mail’s website.

Denise can now see better than 20/20 in each eye and is delighted with the result. She had the operation to get ready for climbing Kilimanjaro next month for Comic Relief without her contact lenses.

Laser Eye Surgery Videos – Coming Soon!

Laser eye surgery videosCheck back for our pioneering series of laser eye surgery videos, for everything you could ever want to know about having lasik laser eye surgery, with also lots of information for those of you living in or near London

Which Laser Eye Clinic Should I Choose?

The choices can seem bewildering! You want to have laser eye treatment e.g LASIK and now you need to choose the clinic for your surgery.

But which one?

There are over 100 clinics in the UK, although 75% of those are made up of only three large business laser chains: Optical Express, Optimax and Ultralase. The other 25% are mainly owned by doctors and optometrists, who practice from their centres.

80% of UK centres have adopted the advanced blade-free femtosecond lasers, and so now offer blade-free LASIK (a.k.a all-laser LASIK, Intralase, Z-LASIK). These include:  FOCUS Laser Vision , Optimax, Optical Express, Ultralase, Moorfields Eye Hospital and Centre for Sight.

20% of UK centres have not yet invested in this technology, and only offer bladed LASIK, where a device containing a short blade is used to cut the LASIK flap. These centres include Advance VisionCare and Accuvision in London

Having your laser eye treatment with a blade free femtosecond method has rapidly become the standard of care for UK LASIK laser eye surgery.

Get All Your Money Back After Laser Eye Surgery!

How would you like advanced laser eye surgery and then get all your money back?

The Full Refund Referral Plan from FOCUS Laser Vision means that really is now possible. You can have laser eye treatment to see once again without glasses… and then you could get all your money back! Brilliant.

Sounds too good to be true?

First of all, FOCUS Laser Vision offer the UK’s best price for advanced blade free laser eye correction, so you are happy you saved money over more expensive clinics but without compromising skill, quality or safety. NHS Corneal Consultants, best and safest lasers, superb team. But you can go even further. You can get a full refund on your treatment, every penny.

Here’s how it works. You are delighted with your new vision after your laser eye treatment. Of course you want to tell everyone! You tell your family, friends, work mates. Now they want to have laser eye surgery too.

Once 5 people you know have come along and had treatment you can get 50% of your money back. Once another 5 come along and have treatment, 10 people total, you will get all of your money back. All of it, in full.

In effect, you will then have back everything you paid and had your laser eye surgery for free!

Your family, friends and colleagues are delighted with their new vision and also because they got the UK’s best price! They really like you! And they too can spread the word to benefit from our Full Refund Referral Plan.

Laser Eye Surgery Safety: 3 things you must know

Laser eye surgery safety

For LASIK laser eye surgery safety, there are 3 things you must look for when you plan to go ahead. This LASIK safety trio means a more accurate result and the safest procedure we know of today:

  1. Choose a blade-free all laser LASIK technique – using the latest femtosecond lasers means no blade is used in the surgery. Check with any clinic you talk to that they can offer blade-free LASIK – if they can’t then they are out of date and should be avoided.
  2. Wavefront-based LASIK is a must today, so make sure you go for that option. For example, at FOCUS Laser Vision we only do wavefront treatments so that is taken care of. At other centres such as Optical Express, do not choose their non-wavefront option.
  3. Get the safety and reassurance of NHS consultant corneal specialist surgeons to do your treatment – the three laser eye chains do not offer this for the great majority of their treatments. Premier centres like Moorfields Eye Hospital, Centre for Sight and FOCUS Laser Vision do.

Historic LASIK Laser Eye Surgery Performed on Quadriplegic Patient

According to PR Newswire yesterday, Eric Abrue (30), a quadriplegic patient who is dependent on a respirator since he was 8 years old, underwent a historic and highly successful LASIK procedure performed by Drs. Jeffrey and Joseph Dello Russo in Bergenfield in New Jersey, USA.

Eric fell from a playground bar back in 1986, breaking his neck and also cutting his spinal cord. Ever since he has suffered from quadriplegia, completely unable to move his body from his neck downwards and is only able to breath for a short time without the use of a respirator.

Eric is the first quadriplegic patient in the world who underwent LASIK, using the Wavelight Eye-Q and a special WL Swivel Chair (also used by FOCUS Laser Vision).

Eric is dependent for all his needs on an around-the-clock care giver. He runs a successful music production company, attends a college online and designs his own T-shirt line. He was using eyeglasses to see his computer clearly but in the last few months has found out that wearing glasses did little to clear up his vision, and the images became after using the computer for 14-16 hours per day. Sitting about two feet away from his laptop, Eric began to have headaches due to the strain on his eyes. Eric uses a wand placed in his mouth by his caregiver to surf the internet and send mails to clients and friends. He is highly skilled with the device, typing rapidly and accurately for many hours of the day. Trying to ensure his eyes will keep serving him as the main tool to connect with the world, he became interested in the LASIK procedure and began reading about it online.

Laser Eye Treatment CAN be Reversed

This is a common question about laser eye surgery safety I get asked by patients:

What happens if my vision isn’t right after treatment?

Most people don’t realise that the effect of laser eye surgery, including LASIK, LASEK and PRK procedures, CAN be fully reversed.

Laser Eye Treatment ReversalAlthough this isn’t necessary because if the prescription for glasses hasn’t been fully corrected then a second treatment is easily performed to fix that and stay free from the need for glasses or contact lenses. If the effect of the laser correction is a bit too strong or too weak, we call this an over-correction or an under-correction respectively.

All over- and under-corrections can be treated easily. In fact, as I mentioned, the whole laser eye treatment can be reversed. The move over to the Ziemer blade free system (Z-LASIK) has dramatically reduced the need to re-do LASIK treatments.

Most clinics quote enhancement rates of around 5%.  BUT with Z-LASIK for short-sight I have only had to adjust one case in the last 200, so that’s a 0.5% rate. Without any hype or spin, that’s just very impressive and a great step forward.

To fully reverse the effect of e.g. a short-sighted laser eye treatment, we remove some tissue from the outer part of the cornea to put the corneal curvature back to where it started. So now an equal amount of tissue has been removed across the cornea and so the focus would be back where it started. Of course, the cornea is a little thinner than before, but still strong enough for its role.

It’s the accuracy of the dual laser approach that allows such a very low enhancement rate, which means 9.5% of short-sighted patients are on target and very happy with only one treatment and without the need for a top-up.

SAFETY NOTE: Does the LASIK flap ever heal?

IMPORTANT NEWS for those people considering having LASIK laser eye surgery.

There appears to be a fundamental difference between LASIK flaps cut either with a blade or created with a laser. Laser created flaps mean a safer surgery as the results are more accurate, so fewer enhancements needed, and the eye is left stronger.

LASIK laser eye surgery flap healingMaking a replaceable flap is the first part of the LASIK procedure, just prior to reshaping the cornea to correct vision. Until recently (and still in many clinics) the flap was made by a physical cut with a very sharp razor blade contained within a precision device. However several clinics and the major three chain operators have invested in femtosecond lasers to create the corneal flap without the need for a blade.

This is known as blade-free LASIK, dual laser LASIK, Z-LASIK or IntraLASIK depending on which clinic you are talking to.

We know that thicker flaps cut with a blade do not fully heal and can be lifted up surgically even many years later. Traditional blade flaps are thicker and cut deeper into the cornea. However laser flaps are thinner and leave the eye stronger afterwards.

However a key difference highlighted by Professor John Marshall in London is that because these very thin laser flaps pass through near the surface of the cornea where the collagen is different from deeper down, they actually heal down and are not able to be lifted later on. This means the eye regains strength again with a laser flap, but not with a blade flap.

Newer blade machines have been introduced in 2008 and 2009 that cut thinner flaps to compete with the thin femtosecond laser flaps which should benefit from the better healing seen in sub-120 micron flaps

My recommendation to you when choosing a clinic is to be able to select to have a femtosecond laser procedure at a clinic that has that technology. They are more expensive than blade procedures (expect to pay around £300 more per eye) but well worth the likelihood of a long-term increase in safety.

Lifetime Care Guarantee after Laser Eye Surgery

Laser Eye Surgery GuaranteeYou might want to take a look at the laser eye surgery Lifetime Care Guarantee introduced at FOCUS Laser Vision (www.focusclinics.com/treatments_after.php). There are millions of people who would like to have laser eye surgery, although worries about possible complications is the quoted main reason that people have not yet gone ahead.

People have been looking for peace of mind and want to know that a clinic will take care of them afterwards.

Currently only FOCUS Laser Vision and Ultralase offer a lifetime care guarantee after laser eye surgery.

The biggest thought in every patient’s mind is about safety and that is exactly how it should be. As a prospective laser eye surgery patient (LASIK or PRK) you need to do a little research beforehand, so take a look at various clinics’ websites. Check the FOCUS Laser Vision or Ultralase websites for more details of their Lifetime Care Guarantees.

You can also check out Optimax, Optical Express or Moorfields (or any other UK clinics in fact) but none of these clinics offer a lifetime guarantee.

More People Are Choosing to Have Laser Eye Treatment Since NICE Report Into LASIK

The number of people having laser eye surgery in the UK has increased following a boost in March 2006 when the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) issued their guidance that laser eye treatment was sufficiently safe and effective to be carried out on appropriately selected patients.

Since then, the number of clinics offering laser eye surgery has increased. The three UK laser eye chains – Optical Express, Optimax and Ultralase – have all stated plans to increase the number of clinics they run.

The credit crunch and stock market falls have led to a dip in recent weeks reported by most consultants doing private laser eye correction. However the overall trend has been a rise in the number of procedures carried out in the UK.

Kay’s Great Questions Part 7: LASIK vs PRK vs LASEK? Which laser eye procedure is best?

Continuing from yesterday:
Some surgeons recommend PRK or LASEK (both forms of surface laser eye treatment and basically the same) over LASIK. The article referred to by Kay in her original post and advocating LASEK was written by ophthalmic surgeon Sunil Shah, who was one of the creators of that particular approach (and so has some personal interest in writing about it one presumes).

Glasses and eye chartOne of the very vocal and respected advocates of surface laser (PRK) over keratome LASIK was Professor John Marshall in London, UK, a founding father of laser eye surgery back in the 80s. Prof Marshall argued convincingly that the cornea was considerable stronger after PRK compared to mechanical (thicker flap) keratome LASIK.

However, the game has changed with the introduction of femtosecond lasers with much thinner flaps. Even Professor Marshall now supports the move to thin-flap LASIK using a dual laser, blade-free approach.

So if a clinic cannot offer dual laser LASIK (and many still can’t) they may offer PRK/LASEK instead. There are some clinical reasons to perform PRK instead of LASIK but the percentage of these cases has shrunk from 10-15% down to around 5% today, with dual laser technology. Patients much prefer femto-laser LASIK over PRK, as the latter is fairly unpleasant for a few days post-op.

In summary, there are definite clinical reasons why we as treating clinics have moved over to wavefront LASIK and using a blade-free dual laser approach. More accurate treatments so better vision, removal of an older mechanical device technology and improved long-term safety.

Kay’s Great Questions Part 6: LASIK vs PRK vs LASEK? Which laser eye procedure is best?

We discussed in the last post about the two options you have: LASIK or PRK (surface laser), and how 90%+ of treatments are done via LASIK.

LASIK comes in two flavours now: blade or blade-free. The older traditional LASIK technique uses a mechanical device containing a blade (called a keratome or microkeratome) to cut a flap during the first part of the procedure. The newer, more advanced method is to use a special laser (known as a femtosecond laser) to create a flap without a blade.

Femtosecond lasers can create a LASIK flap without a bladeThese femtosecond lasers are hugely expensive (about a quarter of a millions pounds each!) so expect to pay more for this technology. Some clinics have not yet invested in femto lasers due to the high cost involved and continue to use a blade.

The benefits of a laser flap over a blade flap are becoming clear: more accurate treatment, better healing of the flap, greater strength in the cornea post-op due to significantly thinner laser flaps and greater residual thickness. Blade flaps have been used for many years and have been proven safe to date, but thinner laser flaps have added better accuracy and strength. You will see a gradual phasing out of blade flaps over laser flaps over the coming few years.

More tomorrow!

Kay’s Great Questions Part 5: LASIK vs PRK vs LASEK? Which laser eye procedure is best?

You will have a choice of procedures when you come to have laser eye surgery. But which one will be right for you?

Basically though, there are only two laser eye treatment procedures available, but each one has options within.

Option 1: LASIK (the most common and most popular)

Option 2: Surface Laser (with various forms… PRK, LASEK, epiLASIK)

LASIK laser eye surgeryLet’s begin with option 1, LASIK, which is by far the most common laser eye procedure, accounting for more than 90% of all laser vision corrections. Why is it so popular? Well, it is pretty much painless both during and after surgery and great vision is there by the next day. Patients can also work again the next day so very little downtime. This is the procedure that spreads quickly by word-of-mouth due to it’s powerful ‘wow!’ effect. The flip side here is that some patients are cautious about having a corneal flap created with a mechanical blade device and questions around long-term stability of the cornea.

These issues have driven the rapid move over to blade-free (dual laser) LASIK. Here the blade is eliminated in favour of a laser to create the corneal flap and the flaps made are much thinner and more accurate. More on this very soon in the next article.

Next, option 2, Surface Laser, comes in the guises of PRK, LASEK, epiLASIK, epi-flap, etc. At the risk of upsetting some colleagues and equipment suppliers, these are all basically the same procedure! Whichever variation you get, your final vision result will be the same. Some doctors and clinics use different names but there isn’t really a big difference at all. Vision, recovery time, post-operative pain – all the same across the board.

This is the laser eye surgery procedure that is very well remembered by patients… because it is painful for 2-3 days afterwards! And it takes several days for vision to recover. So there is not much word-of-mouth spread, and no ‘wow’ effect. When friends ring up the next day to see how you are doing, you will tell them you can’t see well yet and it really hurts!

So why do some doctors or clinics advocate PRK as the best choice? There is no flap cut hence eliminating blade-related potential complications and the cornea remains stronger compared to the same prescription after a LASIK eye procedure.

OK, enough for now. More on this topic very soon and on how the introduction of thin-flap blade free LASIK changed the game.

Kay’s Great Questions Part 4. Should I Pay More For Wavefront? What is the Truth?

If you read yesterdays post you are up to speed on wavefront technology. OK, so far so good. It seems wavefront correction improves quality of vision after laser eye surgery. And indeed clinical trials confirm that vision results are much better after laser makers added the ‘wavefront‘ upgrades to their machines.

For example, the American made VISX lasers, used at all Optical Express laser clinics, have much better results when using their wavefront upgrade from 2002. I would not recommend having laser eye treatment today in 2008 without choosing the wavefront package on that system.

Wavefront technology used in laser eye treatment - is it the whole story?

Wavefront laser eye surgery - is it the whole truth?

So now you want ‘wavefront‘ in your laser eye treatment! Of course, as the results are better. But when laser manufacturers introduced ‘wavefront’ they actually bundled in other improvements which may account for much of the jump in results! They just didn’t tell you. Why? Because it is complicated to describe all these improvements to someone who isn’t familiar with the technology – such as you, the patient!!

And honestly, I bet the sales people at most clinics talking on the phones who want to sell you a consultation don’t really understand it either! However, they have been trained to explain the wavefront part only, as something like this… “we take a scan, a unique fingerprint, of your vision and the use that fingerprint to perfectly correct your vision“. Go on, call them and check it out!

But for you, as a patient or customer, don’t really care about which part of that technology is helping you the most, you just want great vision, right?

So don’t let clinics blind you with science about wavefront scanners, wavefront maps, measuring hundreds of points of light or how much better their scanner is than other clinics scanners. It is usually marketing spin! Take it all with a pinch of salt.

However, you should choose the ‘wavefront option’ because within that package are the big improvements in laser eye treatment over the past several years. The success of surgery may actually be less to do with the true wavefront technology that has helped astronomy, but rather other improvements that may be confusing to patients but get wrapped up in the marketing of wavefront LASIK.

We come back to ethics again here. Is it ethical for some clinics to still sell ‘non-wavefront’ laser eye surgery technology that was replaced back in 2002?

For my own clinic, we do not offer non-wavefront treatments at all. None at all. I want every one of my patients to have the benefit of the newer laser eye surgery results. So we made it very affordable. In fact, we charge less for wavefront LASIK than other clinics do for their ‘entry level’ lower price non-wavefront LASIK. Really.

That’s my plug for FOCUS done! So, do choose wavefront but don’t pay more than you have to!

Kay’s Great Questions: Part 3. Should I Pay More For Wavefront LASIK? Will I See Better?

To recap from earlier this week, there are two ways you can upgrade your laser eye treatment: (1) upgrading on the quality of the final vision (you will see better afterwards) and (2) improving the safety and accuracy of the laser eye surgery. These are upgrades on what used to be the best treatment only a few years ago, which is known as non-wavefront LASIK and using a blade device to cut a thin flap in the surface of the cornea (the clear window at the front of the eye).

Upgrading on (1) involves paying for what is called ‘wavefront‘ laser eye surgery over ‘non-wavefront’.

Upgrading on (2) means getting rid of a metal razor-type blade in favour of a laser for the first part of the LASIK treatment (lots of names here… blade-free, dual laser, femtosecond, Intralase, Ziemer, Z-LASIK).

Kay’s questions have been about: is it really worth it to pay more? The short answer is that, yes, you should always look for ‘wavefront’ laser eye treatment. But why?

Well, the reason for this is not as obvious as laser eye clinics may tell you!

Wavefront refers to a technology adapted from astronomy which allows better resolution and clarity when looking at images of space. The principle is to remove tiny imperfections of focus, rays of light that are not getting focused properly and which cause blurriness, glare or hide details. Let’s look at an example from astronomy. In this image you can see how a blurry image of a star was improved though wavefront technology to reveal in fact two stars, known as a ‘binary star’.

Wavefront technology removing distortions

'Wavefront' laser eye surgery can improve quality of vision

These imperfections of focus (known usually as aberrations) are not corrected by glasses. They are still there even after putting on your glasses or contact lenses. So after correcting your prescription fully and getting clear vision, you can still have imperfections in your vision which are usually more obvious at night.

Check back tomorrow for the next installment and the full answer on whether it is worth it to pay more  in order to get the best vision results (at most clinics – not mine, I add, FOCUS Laser Vision! – we don’t charge extra for you to get wavefront correction! In fact we charge less for wavefront surgery than other clinics do for their non-wavefront treatments).

See you tomorrow!

Kay’s Great Questions: Part 2. Expensive Laser Eye Surgery – Is It Worth It?

Following on from yesterdays post on some key LASIK and laser eye surgery questions, lets look at these:

  • Do clinics try to sell you on the most expensive treatments?
  • Are these expensive treatments no better than the cheaper ones?
  • Is there really any difference between blade LASIK and the newer (more expensive) blade free dual laser option?

The main point here is about more expensive laser eye treatments over cheaper ones. What is the difference?

When you buy anything you normally have a choice of quality and price, for example an HD television or more basic one. Or a Mercedes over a Fiat Punto. We all understand that more money usually gets a higher value brand and clinics typically price the surgery this way too.

There are two ways you can upgrade your treatment: (1) upgrading on the quality of the final vision (you will see better afterwards) and (2) improving the safety and accuracy of the eye surgery. These are upgrades on what used to be the best treatment only a few years ago, which is known as non-wavefront LASIK and using a blade device to cut a thin flap in the surface of the cornea (the clear window at the front of the eye).

Let’s look first at spending more to get better quality of vision than the older ’standard’ treatments (which are STILL available at most clinics, not at my centre – FOCUS, by the way, although there is a good case to abandon this older technology). The high street chains (Ultralase, Optimax and Optical Express) all offer two levels of surgery for quality of vision.

The basic cheaper treatment is called by various names but all are what are termed ‘Non-Wavefront’ surgeries. For example Ultralase call it just ‘laser eye surgery’, Optimax and Optical Express refer just to ‘LASIK’.

The higher quality, better vision treatments all come under what is called ‘Wavefront’ laser eye surgery.

‘Wavefront’ simply refers to a technology that is claimed to offer higher-definition vision, especially at night time, which was introduced several years ago.

Just to confuse you there are different names, again depending on which clinic you visit! For example, Ultralase call this ‘ULTRALASIKplus‘, Optimax opt for the simpler ‘Wavefront LASIK‘, while Optical Express go for the mouthful of ‘Advanced CustomVue Wavefront LASIK‘. Other independent clinics use various names.

At my own clinic FOCUS Laser Vision, we only offer the higher quality vision ‘wavefront’ laser eye treatments. You cannot get non-wavefront eye surgery with us.

Please note that paying more at one clinic doesn’t mean you get better surgery than at another clinic. You need to look at what you are paying for. For example FOCUS Laser Vision charge less for advanced wavefront correction than most other clinics do for older technology non-wavefront treatments. Blowing my own trumpet here, I know! But paying more does not always equal getting more. More on this later.

Kay also asked in her mail about the ethics of treatment offerings and we will cover that topic in the next blog postings. Basically, is it ethical to offer lower quality treatments when newer higher quality ones are available? No-one cares about this for other products and services (is it ethical to sell Fiat Puntos when Mercedes are available?) but it can be a hot topic in healthcare. I will write on this subject during the coming week. And I will welcome your comments!

OK, but are these ‘wavefront’ treatments really better than ‘non-wavefront’? Come back tomorrow to get the truth!

Kay’s Great Questions: Part 1. Why Do Different Laser Eye Clinics Recommend Very Different Treatments?

Laser eye surgery questionsJust had a great series of questions from Kay in a comment in response to my blog post How Much Should You Pay For LASIK?

There are some very interesting points here that do in fact come up pretty frequently in the clinic and from people inquiring into laser eye surgery, be it LASIK or PRK.

Many people can get confused, quite naturally, from the often bewildering amount of information on LASIK that is available on the internet and from clinics via information packs. Each clinic claims to have better technology, surgeons, results, experience etc than their competitors and much of it can be taken with a handful of salt.

Some honest straight forward information would be helpful.

I liked Kay’s questions so much I shall write a series of answers over the coming days. These will address such questions as:

  1. Do clinics try to sell you on the most expensive treatments?
  2. Are these expensive treatments no better than the cheaper ones?
  3. Is it ethical to offer older treatments when new (claimed as better) technology is now available?
  4. Is there really any difference between blade LASIK and the newer (more expensive) blade free dual laser option?
  5. Why do some surgeons strongly recommend LASEK or PRK?
  6. Why is there such a variation in price between clinics?
  7. Why do clinics offer radically different treatments for the same prescription?
Check back to this blog over the coming days to get ALL the answers.
Here is Kay’s comment in full:

Hi Dave

I am exploring having laser surgery and was hoping you could clarify a few points for me please?

Both Optimax and Optical Express suggested that I go for blade free Wavefront treatment, but also said I could opt for the cheaper treatments. If technology is now more advanced and the blade free method is considered safer how is it ethical to allow patients to opt for a sub-standard treatment?

Statistics published on complications and results achieved seem to be quite limited (i.e based on a small amount of patients compared to the 2 million a year having treatment)but overall (from my limited reading) there does not appear to be that much difference between microkeratome Lasik and blade free Lasik. Is there any studies or statistic that you can point me in the direction of to support either treatment?

At a third consultation (at the Birkdale Clinic) the surgeon strongly recommended Lasek over Lasik on the grounds of biomechanical stability. (This is a link to an article on this subject for anybody else researching this subject http://www.otmagazine.co.uk/articles/docs/98b3f4f1a6338c3d722db8ec550fab58_shah20030613.pdf) The same surgeon also suggested after my eye exam that Wavefront treatment for me would not necessarily offer any additional benefits.

Im now completely confused as I can’t work out whether the first mentioned clinics are trying to sell me the most expensive treatment to get more money or if the Birkdale is behind on the technology front. (The Birkdale do offer Wavefront Lasik and Lasek but not blade free).

Do you think some clinics are pushing the more expensive treatments to pay for the lasers they have already invested without the evidence being conclusive at this stage as to whether it will achieve better results?

Finally when I rang Focus to obtain some information I was told that you would probably not even treat my right eye as the prescription is too low. My prescription is

RIGHT SPH -050 CYL -075 AXIS 110
LEFT SPH -025 CYL -225 AXIS 90

Obviously there is a huge difference between £0 to not treat the eye and £1700 at other clinics. Is there any way to get independent advice (outside of the clinics selling the procedure) on what the best treatment for me is?

Apologies for the extremely long post

Kind regards

Kay

What is going to happen to laser eye surgery prices?

Overall all laser eye surgery prices are increasing or set to increase. The cost of new technology to give you better and safer surgery is very high and needs to be constantly updated. Even though FOCUS have the UK’s best prices, you will find the trend everywhere will be up.

Laser eye prices set to increaseFor example, laser clinics used to need one laser at a cost of £1/3 million. Now they need two to offer blade free dual laser LASIK, total cost £2/3 million and treatment prices are no different on average to back in 2000.

In a nutshell it costs a lot to do this type of treatment and costs are only increasing. The benefit of that though: highly accurate treatments with better safety than ever before.

At FOCUS, we made a decision to buy the very best technology and to bring that to the UK at the lowest price so that more people could afford to get fantastic levels of surgeon, service and technology, all without compromise. That is not hype. It is just what we have wanted to do.

But all of that does cost and has to be paid for. And no government bail-outs for anyone in healthcare! Unlike some banks we have to be prudent, cautious and look after our customers without risk so that we will be here next week, next month and next year.

Price wars in the US a few years ago meant cheaper surgery at first. Then bankrupt clinics closing with people having to pay all over again in order to get their aftercare. Not a good result for patients in the end.

You may see some special offers following these recent economic changes until things level out and then improve again. You may want to take advantage of those, as longer term costs will go up.