Biography
Biography: Italo Giuffre,
Abstract
Cataract surgery is one of the most intriguing subjects in ophthalmology. Time and time ago, people started to face a reduction of visual function associated to opacification of the lens, mostly in elderly people. In the past, but even in the last century in Eastern Europe, people tried to solve this surgical problem by “reclinatio” that is pushing traumatically the opacified lens into the vitreous chamber. Of course there was a moderate improvement of the visual function but at the risk of endophthalmitis and/or vitreitis. More recently, in the past century, the “intracapsular” cataract extraction was developed, associated with the use of contact lens and/or scleral-fixed intraocular lens (IOL) to improve the visual function of the patient. In the last 30 years, there was a fast evolution of the cataract surgery, including the “extracapsular” extraction, preserving the posterior capsule of the lens and positioning the IOL into the bag till the femto-laser assisted cataract surgery (FLACS). This technique uses the femtolaser to create the side-port, the arcuate incisions to reduce the astigmatism and, mainly, to make softer, the hardest nucleus of the cataract. The most modern cataract surgery techniques include: SMILE (small incision lenticule extraction) about lens extraction and microincision cataract surgery (MICS) with very small side-ports and micro-instruments. The evolution of the cataract extraction technique focuses mostly on some main topics as follows: to help cataract surgeons reduce the risk of intraoperative and postoperative side-effects, such as posterior capsule rupture and/or endophthalmitis, to reduce postop astigmatism, to improve and make faster visual recovery after the surgical procedure.