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O P H T H A L M O L O G Y
WHAT IS A FEMTOSECOND?
n't have a fixed
A 1 Followed By 15 Zeros
C
bed, which is a big
ataract surgeries are known to be short, effi-
advantage," he
cient undertakings, but manual incisions,
says. "The
limbal relaxing incisions and capsulorhexis
attached bed not
have nothing on femtosecond lasers, the precise and
only makes a bigultra-short pulses that could revolutionize the proce-
ger footprint, but
dure. But what is a femtosecond? It's one-millionth of
you also can't just
a nanosecond (itself a billionth of a second). In other
bring the patient
words, one-quadrillionth of a second. (A quadr-illion
in on a stretcher
is a 1 followed by 15 zeros). How fast is your sur-
to operate. You
geon's scalpel hand?
— David Bernard
have to bring
them in on a chair,
transfer them to
CUT ONCE T. Hunter Newsom, MD,
of the Tampa (Fla.) Surgery Center
prepares for a femtosecond incision.
Peter Nikiel of Newsom Eye in Tampa, Fla.
the bed, then back
to the chair."
Besides the
physical bulk of
its equipment,
laser cataract surgery may demand
some rethinking
and adaptation of
your surgical
F E B R U A R Y 2013 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
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