Featuring: Keith A. Skolnick, M.D.
Astigmatism is an irregular shape to the cornea and lens of your eye which causes blurred vision. Most of us are born with it and our glasses and contact lenses correct it. Some of us have it and do not even know it. However, during cataract surgery, you have the opportunity to permanently correct it, effectively “producing two different outcomes within one surgical procedure”.
There is little downside to correcting your astigmatism during cataract surgery as it only gives you a better result. Visually significant astigmatism affects nearly 1/2 of my patients undergoing cataract surgery and 1/3 of them elect to have it corrected. The reason all patients do not elect to correct it is financial, as insurance companies including Medicare do not pay for the correction of astigmatism. They consider it refractive in nature as glasses or contact lenses may be worn to address it as well.
If your astigmatism is very mild it can be corrected using the femtosecond laser in which additional corneal incisions are made to reshape it. For most cases of astigmatism, the preferred method of treatment is the placement of a toric lens implant. A toric lens replaces your cataract and neutralizes astigmatism thereby giving you sharper vision.
I have been using these types of toric lens implants since they were FDA approved many years ago. I was fortunate enough to be the first eye surgeon in South Florida to place these new toric lens implants. It is manufactured by Johnson and Johnson and is called the Tecnis toric II (ZCU). It features high-quality aspheric optics and its new design adds stability within the eye. Here is a video explaining my initial experience using this lens implant.
