Abstract
Purpose :
Femtosecond laser technology has been well established for cataract surgery and has also been attempted for animal corneal wound creation model. The femtosecond laser instrument uses a suction cup (a sterile component that is placed on the cornea) that generates a negative pressure which applanates the cornea to prepare it for the laser operation. This cup is designed to suit human eye and is not compatible for any animal model. In this study, we have prototyped a custom suction cup that is suitable for rabbit cornea for the optimization of wound model.
Methods :
Femtolaser instrument (LDV Z8,Ziemer Ophthalmology GmbH ,Germany) was used to initially create the corneal wound (5mm diameter, x N NaOH, x seconds) using the standard suction cup. A 3 dimensional scan of the cup was used to extract the dimensions and used as a reference to redesign a modified suction cup based on the rabbit eye dimensions. The redesigned cup was first prototyped using Digital light processing until the validation stage. The final model was additively manufactured using direct metal laser sintering process using titanium.
Results :
The standard suction cup suited for humans had an internal diameter of 12 mm,an external diameter of 20mm and a height of 3.5mm that created a pressure of 70mm-Hg to get the right amount of applanation for the surgery. The standard suction cup when used on the rabbit cornea generated a pressure lesser than 50 mm-Hg and hence the right applanation was not achieved for surgery. Four set of iterations was done to achieve the final desired results of the cup before it was printed in titanium. The final dimensions were reported to have an internal diameter of 9.5 mm, outer diameter of 16 mm and a height of 2.7mm and it achieved pressure of 70 mm-Hg.
Conclusions :
A femto-laser assisted rabbit cornea wound model was optimized with the redesigned suction cup. The redesigned suction cup helped generate the right corneal applanation required to carry out the laser surgery and provides a reliable component that suits a rabbit cornea.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.