BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of the Invention

This invention relates to ophthalmic surgery, and in particular, it relates to an ophthalmic procedure that employs additive manufacturing inside the human eye.

Description of Related Art

Cataract treatment often consists of replacement of the opacified human crystalline lens by an artificial intra-ocular lens (IOL). The IOL is inserted into the patient's eye through an opening in the cornea. The incision size in the cornea depends on the IOL size. Although the incision in the cornea closes relatively fast due to the remarkable ability of the eye tissue to regenerate, it is hard to retain the optical characteristics of the cornea, and some residual diopters may be associated with the healing process of the cornea. The larger the incision, the larger the unknown optical aberrations induced. It is of interest to reduce the size of the incision into the cornea to minimize the severity of the optical aberrations.

Cataract surgery has improved significantly in the past few years with the advent of femtosecond laser surgery, where incisions to the cornea can be minimized to accommodate the insertion of the IOL and other surgical tools needed during the surgery. Opening into the outer layer of the human lens, also referred as capsule, are made nearly perfectly circular, with precise and reproducible diameter. Size and shape of the capsule opening, or capsulotomy, has a direct impact on the success and quality of the cataract surgery. Too big of a capsulotomy and the IOL is hard set in place while too small of a capsulotomy would render impossible the introduction of the IOL inside the capsule. Deviations from circularity in the capsulotomy often are related to distorted image forming on sight periphery. Femtosecond laser surgery produces perfectly circular capsulotomies and precisely sized corneal incisions with shaped cross section specially designed to expedite healing and reduce post-surgical visual aberrations. Nevertheless, the corneal incision produced by femtosecond laser surgery has to be barely but large enough to allow for the introduction of the IOL which is typically 2 mm wide. Manual surgery makes use of even bigger corneal incision, usually made with a surgical knife by the surgeon's hand. Manual incision does not have a cross section profile to expedite healing, so larger optical aberrations are expected.

More generally, laparoscopic surgery tries to minimize the recovery time by minimizing the incision size. Some surgical robots are available on the market for such procedures; for example, a surgical system is available that can perform prostate surgery with minor disruptions.

Also, a large array of implantable medical devices are available for treatment of numerous conditions, such as heart valves, insulin pumps and monitors, orthopedic screws, knew and hip replacements, etc. The same issue discussed above generally applies to any medical device that is implantable inside the human body, i.e., large devices require large incisions that take longer to heal.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and system for building intra ocular lenses (IOLs) using additive manufacturing techniques (“3D printing”) inside the eye.

This technique allows for manufacturing IOLs and other implantables inside the human body such as the eye via a tinny orifice just large enough to fit a manufacturing tool.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the descriptions that follow and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims thereof as well as the appended drawings.

In one aspect, the present invention provides a method of treating a patient's eye, which includes: using a pulse laser beam from a laser system to form an opening in a cornea and an opening in a lens capsule of the patient's eye; using the pulse laser beam from the laser system to break up a crystalline lens of the eye from the lens capsule; removing the broken up crystalline lens through the openings in the cornea and the lens capsule; injecting a material into the lens capsule through the openings in the cornea and the lens capsule; and forming an artificial IOL inside the lens capsule by scanning a focal spot of the pulse laser beam from the laser system inside the lens capsule in a defined scanning pattern to transform the material in a vicinity of the focal spot of the pulse laser beam.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a method for forming an artificial intra-ocular lens (IOL) inside a patient's eye, which includes: injecting a material into a lens capsule of the patient's eye, where a natural lens of the eye has been removed from the lens capsule; and forming an artificial IOL inside the lens capsule by scanning a focal spot of the pulse laser beam from the laser system inside the lens capsule in a defined scanning pattern to transform the material in a vicinity of the focal spot of the pulse laser beam.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a method for forming an artificial intra-ocular lens (IOL) inside a patient's eye, which includes: injecting a liquefied photopolymer resin into a lens capsule of the patient's eye to form a volume of the liquefied photopolymer resin in the eye, where a natural lens of the eye has been removed from the lens capsule; and forming the artificial IOL inside the lens capsule by scanning a focal spot of a pulse laser beam inside the volume of the resin in the eye, including: adjusting a depth of the focal spot of the pulse laser beam within the volume of the liquefied photopolymer resin; scanning the focal spot of the pulse laser beam in a lateral plane at the adjusted depth across a defined area, wherein the resin is solidified in a vicinity of the focal spot of the pulse laser beam; and repeating the adjusting step and the scanning step.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a method of treating a patient's eye, which includes: using a pulse laser beam from a laser system to form an opening in a cornea and an opening in a lens capsule of the patient's eye; using a pulse laser beam from the laser system to break up a crystalline lens of the eye from the lens capsule; removing the broken up crystalline lens through the openings in the cornea and the lens capsule; injecting a liquefied photopolymer resin into the lens capsule through the openings in the cornea and the lens capsule, to form a volume of the liquefied photopolymer resin in the eye; and forming an artificial IOL inside the lens capsule by scanning a focal spot of a pulse laser beam from the laser system inside the volume of the resin in the eye, including: adjusting a depth of the focal spot of the pulse laser beam within the volume of the liquefied photopolymer resin; scanning the focal spot of the pulse laser beam in a lateral plane at the adjusted depth across a defined area, wherein the resin is solidified in a vicinity of the focal spot of the pulse laser beam; and repeating the adjusting step and the scanning step.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.

