CHENNAI: Four months ago, Vanitha, a 40-year-old woman living in Vaniyambadi, noticed that she was losing vision in her left eye. Worried that her family would incur a lot of financial strain to treat her, the mother of three college-going children, neglected her eye.
What she was not aware of was that she was going to be among the first patients in the world to undergo the Hypersonic Vitrectomy procedure. This was enabled by a an innovative technology that removes blood from the eye using ultrasound rather than other machines which uses cutters. Dr Amar Agarwal said the machine has a touchscreen, talks like Siri and has a foot pedal which aids doctors who ‘are like Arjun, cutting through the vitreous’.
“The technology for performing vitrectomy has changed little over the last 40 years when the first single port, multi-functional pneumatic cutter was invented,” said Dr Amar Agarwal, chairman, Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital. “The faster the vitreous is cut, the less is the amount of traction on it and therefore there is a decreased risk on the retina. Modern vitrectomy technology operates at speeds up to 5,000 to 7,500 cuts per minute but this technology enables us to increase the cutting rate to approximately 1.7 million cuts per minute.”
Vanitha, like countless others in India, suffers from hypertension. One of the common problems that those with hypertension and diabetes face is that the blood vessels in the eye rupture or burst. And this is what happened to Vanitha.“It happened all of a sudden,” she recounted. “For about a week or 10 days I did not tell anyone anything because the first thing that occurred to me was it was going to be expensive. Soon after, my children noticed that there was something wrong with my left eye, they immediately rushed me to the Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital in Vellore.”
Doctors at the hospital advised Vanitha and her family to go to the Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital in Chennai for Hypersonic Vitrectomy. Initially, they had several apprehensions and were not convinced.
“I pinned all my hopes on the doctors and took a leap of faith, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me,” smiled Vanitha. “I thought it would be worth being part of the clinical trial if it would help many others who were suffering like me. The surgery was very short and I could not believe how quickly my eye recovered. I didn’t even have any irritation or discomfort in the eye. Today, I can see clearly and you can’t even make out the difference between both my eyes.”
Dr Agarwal explained that the surgery lasted only 15 to 20 minutes. “No sutures are required and admission in the hospital too was not needed. This technology provides surgeons with better control, and gives better results to patients as there is no damage done to the neighbouring parts of the retina,” he added. “It can be used by anyone who has damaged their retina through an injury, cracker incident, bomb blast or those with hypertension or diabetes and at the same cost as the surgery that uses the older technology.”
Sanjay Bhutani, MD, Bausch & Lomb India, said that Vitesse Hypersonic Vitrectomy System, represents the first major vitreous removal innovation in 40 years. “It is expected to be commercially available on Bausch & Lomb’s new Stellaris Elite Vision Enhancement System sometime in 2018,” he said.