A Canadian optometrist claims he has developed a “bionic lens” which will allow perfect eyesight “no matter how crummy your eyes are”.
Dr. Garth Webb says his Ocumetics Bionic Lens will provide “three times better than 20/20 vision” without wearing glasses or contacts – even at age 100 or more.
He believes his Bionic Lens will revolutionise the eye care industry, making driving glasses, progressive lenses and contact lenses things of the past. People who have the specialised lenses surgically inserted would never get cataracts because their natural lenses would have been replaced, he said.
Perfect eyesight would result “no matter how crummy your eyes are,” Dr. Webb said, adding the Bionic Lens would be an option for someone who depends on corrective lenses and is over about age 25, when the eye structures are fully developed.
I think this device is going to bring us closer to the holy grail of excellent vision…
EIGHT MINUTE SURGERY
Dr. Webb said the painless procedure to insert the bionic lens, identical to cataract surgery, would take about eight minutes and a patient’s sight would be immediately corrected.
Dr. Vincent DeLuise, an ophthalmologist who teaches at Yale and at Weill Cornell Medical College in the US, said there was a “lot of excitement about the Bionic Lens from very experienced surgeons who perhaps had some cynicism about this because they’ve seen things not work in the past”.
“I think this device is going to bring us closer to the holy grail of excellent vision at all ranges — distant, intermediate and near.”
Dr. Webb says pending clinical trials on animals and then blind human eyes, the Bionic Lens could be available in about two years, depending on regulatory processes in various countries.
