Herald Sun

Edition 2WED 06 SEP 1995, Page 016
NEW VISION IN SURGERY
By Helen CARTER

Within a week of the operation, Mrs Rowell, 73, from Donvale, could return to activities the cataracts, a clouding of the lens inside the eye, had made difficult, such as reading three books a week, driving at night and reading numbers in the phone book.
“My left eye was done in July,” she said yesterday. “My right eye also has a cataract and it will be done next year.”
Unlike traditional surgery, the operation results in no stitches and sight returns to normal within a few days instead of months, according to eye surgeon Dr Mark Medownick.
Dr Medownick, director of the Epworth Eye Centre and Laser Vision Clinic, said a handful of eye surgeons in Melbourne had used the technique.
In traditional surgery, a lens is implanted and up to 10 stitches inserted.
Dr Medownick said it took two to three months to heal as stitches which were gradually removed changed the eye’s shape.
But in small-incision cataract surgery, a diamond knife created a tiny porthole of 3mm in the outer cornea and a tiny tube was placed in.
An ultrasound machine which vibrated at 33,000 times a second and was like a vacuum cleaner “mushed” up the lens and sucked it out.
As a plastic lens could not be inserted without stretching the incision and creating a need for stitches, new implantable lenses made of folding silicone, acryclic and contact lens material were invented.
They were implanted in the hole and as they were so small, the incision was self-healing and there was no need for stitches.

END OF STORY
Caption:  JEAN ROWELL SEEING CLEARLY AFTER SMALL-INCISION CATARACT SURGERY. PICTURE: CRAIG HUGHES.
Section:  NEWS

Herald Sun

Edition 2FRI 23 DEC 1994, Page 019
LASERS OFFER NEW VISION
By CARTER H

The machine improves vision by using laser pulses to sculpt and re-shape the cornea or window of an eye.
One of only three in the world, it has been installed at the Epworth Eye Centre.
Director of the centre’s Laser Vision Clinic, eye surgeon Dr Mark Medownick, said it was an exciting development.
He said the improved second generation Excimer laser machine cost $1 million and was the only machine that could treat long and short-sightedness and combinations of all refractive vision errors.
“I’m incredibly excited and very happy we got it,” Dr Mark Medownick said. “There is the potential now that anyone who wants to improve their eyes can throw away their glasses.”
He has used it for short-sightedness and astigmatism and will start long-sightedness treatment early next year.
Dr Medownick, who went to Germany to learn the technique, said computers mapped the eye to show the adjustment to be made to the cornea.
The treatment shaves off minute amounts of the cornea from the front of the eye, changing its shape to give the patient more normal vision.
“Because the machine is under computerised control it can remove one/one-thousandth of a millimetre of tissue with each pulse,” Dr Medownick said.
Preparation time takes 20 minutes and the operation, done with the aid of a microscope, takes 15 to 60 seconds.
The patient has check-ups and may need adjustments, included in the bill of $2000 to $2500 per eye.

END OF STORY
Caption:  DR MARK MEDOWNICK. PICTURE: MATT BOUWMEESTER.
Section:  NEWS