RPC-Unit-3

 

Cornea, Cataract & Refractive Surgery Services

 FACULTY MEMBERS

S.No.	Name	Designation
1	Prof. Jeewan S. Titiyal	Professor and Unit Head This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
2	Prof. Tushar Agarwal	Professor of Ophthalmology This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
3	Prof. Rajesh Sinha	Professor of Ophthalmology This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
4	Dr. Manpreet Kaur	Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
5	Dr. Sridevi Nair	Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

The unit provides state of the art services in the field of cornea, cataract, and refractive surgery to patients from all over the country. A comprehensive resident training programme that comprises academic lectures, bed-side teaching, and stepwise surgical training is undertaken. Clinical research is given major importance and innovative techniques are constantly being developed to improve the clinical care of patients.

 

The unit offers various advanced, cutting-edge surgical techniques to treat cataract, corneal pathologies, and refractive errors at a minimal cost. High precision, bladeless femtosecond laser assisted cataract surgery (FLACS) that uses laser to perform steps such as incision creation, capsulotomy, and nuclear fragmentation is also available. FLACS is particularly useful in challenging case scenarios such as white cataract where it helps create a circular, adequately sized capsulotomy, or advanced posterior polar cataract where the hybrid pattern of nucleotomy enhances surgical safety. The use of three-dimensional heads-up display microscopes (ARTEVO 800) is a novel addition to the cataract surgical armamentarium. It provides greater magnification and enhanced visibility of the surgical field as compared with the conventional binocular operating microscopes, thus facilitating better surgical outcomes. It is also a valuable tool in the pandemic era for teaching and demonstration of surgical techniques to trainee residents while adhering to social distancing norms.

 

The latest premium intraocular lenses are routinely being implanted, such as multifocal intraocular lens (IOL) and toric IOLs. Toric IOLs not only help in management of cases with high astigmatism but are also customized for specific cases such as corneal ectasia. Multifocal IOLs are also routinely implanted to cater to the needs of patients who wish to be spectacle free post-surgery.

 

The unit also provides highly specialised care to paediatric patients with cataract. Special emphasis is placed on timely surgical interventional and regular follow-up with proper amblyopia management to optimise visual outcomes.

 

The unit has a dedicated contact lens clinic conducted once a week, which caters to optical and cosmetic rehabilitation of a variety of cases, including corneal ectasia with irregular astigmatism, aphakia, corneal opacity and post-keratoplasty astigmatism. In cases of progressive corneal ectasia, corneal collagen crosslinking is done as a minimally invasive procedure to halt disease progression. Various customizations are available to cater to the individual needs of the patient like lenticule-assisted crosslinking and contact lens assisted crosslinking. Newer techniques like oxygen-assisted crosslinking are being evaluated to improve the efficacy of the procedure. Limbal stem cell transplantation is also done for management of limbal stem cell deficiency and ocular surface rehabilitation.

 

The residents are provided training in eye banking as well as performing keratoplasties. Newer specular microscopes available in the National Eye Bank aid in better assessment of the donor corneas. Hundreds of corneal transplantation surgeries are performed each year under the unit. Optical keratoplasties are done to provide sight to those who are disabled due to corneal opacities, while therapeutic keratoplasties are performed to debulk the infective load in patients presenting with recalcitrant corneal infections. Lamellar keratoplasty that involves the selective replacement of the diseased corneal tissue is also routinely performed. The newer automated microkeratomes have facilitated the creation of donor lenticules with increased precision, for use in both anterior lamellar and endothelial keratoplasties. The use of advanced microscopes with integrated optical coherence tomography (OCT) that allow in-vivo visualisation of donor and host cornea have enhanced the safety and precision of lamellar keratoplasty. Femtosecond laser is also being used for donor as well as host corneal tissue preparation during keratoplasty.

paediatric patients with cataract. Special emphasis is placed on timely surgical interventional and regular follow-up with proper amblyopia management to optimise visual outcomes.

 

The most advanced technology is used in refractive surgeries, with patients being offered all types of procedures including laser assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK), photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE). Customized corneal laser refractive procedures that tailor the treatment based on the corneal topography or ocular wavefront profile are also offered to the patients. Different types of phakic IOLs are available to meet the need of the patients of all age groups, including Implantable Collamer Lens (ICL), Refractive Implantable Lens (RIL) and presbyopic phakic IOL.

 

The unit faculty members and senior residents have been enthusiastically involved in all the academic activities, teaching programmes, surgical skill training classes, research work and purpose-driven initiatives.