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• Light adjustable lens
• What is Laser Eye Surgery?
• Laser eye surgery cost
• Laser eye surgery risks
• Lasik
• Lasek
• Wavefront
  • Wavefront
  • Advantages of Wavefront
• Intralase
• Laser eye surgery for reading
• Non Laser Treatments
• Refractive lens exchange
• Implantable contact lenses
• Eyesight Guide
• Macular degeneration
• Glaucoma

Wavefront laser eye surgery

Wavefront is a word you are almost certain to encounter if you are considering laser eye surgery and most clinics will offer it as a premium add-on to both Lasik and Lasek. There are some clinics who will offer wavefront as their standard treatment but they will inevitably charge more.

Wavefront is generally considered to be the gold standard in laser eye surgery as it increases the likelihood of achieving 20:20 vision. Arguably its biggest advantage however is that fact that it significantly reduces the risk of night vision problems which is still one of the most likely complications following surgery. You can read the following guide on this if you want to find out more: How can wavefront reduce night vision problems? 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How is standard laser eye surgery and wavefront different?

With standard Lasik and Lasek, the laser treats the surface of the eye (cornea) in a similar way to spectacles or contact lenses. This is considered a ‘one size fits all’ treatment as it does not allow for the unique imperfections on the surface of your eye. When you need glasses or contact lenses it is because the power of your cornea does not exactly focus the light entering your eye onto the retina. If you are longsighted your cornea is not powerful enough to focus the light onto the retina. If you are short sighted your cornea is too powerful to focus the light onto the retina. Glasses, contact lenses and standard laser eye surgery aim to re-focus this light on to the retina and hence give you perfect vision.

The only problem with this is that your cornea is not the exact same power right across its entire surface. Think of the cornea like the many ripples on a pond. From a distance it appears flat, but when you get up close there are lots of individual peaks and troughs. Glasses, contact lenses and standard laser eye surgery all take an average of these peaks and troughs and provide a standard one size fits all vision correction. Wavefront technology however is different, as it takes many precise measurements right across the surface of your eye compared with only one point of your eye in standard treatment. The machine used to measure these aberrations is called a Aberrometer and all laser eye surgery clinics will have one. There are many different manufacturers of Aberrometer (e.g.Technolas Perfect Vision Zywave) and they all pretty much do the same thing.

The Aberrometer measures your individual visual imperfections from the centre of your cornea to the outer edge of your pupil, to ensure that both your daytime vision and night time vision is assessed as your pupils enlarge in low light levels. The resulting information from the Aberrometer is then used to generate your 'wavefront map' which effectively illustrates your eyes unique visual errors. This information is then used to calculate your personalised treatment profile ensuring that the laser is applied to perfectly eliminate all these imperfections. Think of wavefront technology as accurately measuring all of the different peaks and troughs on your cornea and then treating them accordingly.

Is wavefront always better?

Although wavefront is considered the gold standard treatment in laser eye surgery there may be some instances when you get just as good results with the standard procedure. Everyone's eyes naturally have differing amounts of night vision aberrations which is why some people complain about problems driving at night and some people don't. During a laser eye surgery consultation your visual aberrations will be measured and if they are found to be minimal then you may not necessarily benefit from wavefront treatment.

With the older generation of lasers, wavefront would still have been considered a better option as they tended to make night vision problems worse, regardless of what your pre-surgery aberrations were. However with the latest generation of lasers they have been developed taking this acquired wavefront data into account, meaning the laser ablation profiles have been changed to reflect this. This means that the latest generation of lasers do not significantly increase night vision problems following surgery.

What is the cost of wavefront laser eye surgery?

To read more about the benefit of wavefront you should read the following guide: What are the advantages of wavefront laser eye surgery?
 

 

Got a question about laser eye surgery? Ask it in our laser eye surgery forum.

 

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