Wavelight LASIK Laser

The Wavelight Allegretto Advantage - LASIK Laser Surgery

The Atlanta Vision Institute uses the safest and most advanced technology in the industry today.

Wavelight Allegretto LASIK Laser

The Wavelight Allegretto laser is new generation in laser vision correction.

Wavelight Allegretto Advantage - laser

The Wavelight Allegretto laser addresses this problem by providing the widest treatment area.

In addition the laser places more laser pulses into the periphery to compensate for energy losses and create an ablation that is close to the natural shape of the eye.

Most other lasers have been adapted for LASIK from older models. Some of these lasers use a modified broad beam while others deliver a more narrow beam.

Other Excimer Lasers

Many Excimer lasers use a broad beam (about 6 mm in diameter) with an aperture that controls the amount of the beam that is exposed to the eye during any single pulse.

Some manufacturers have refined this technology by splitting the single broad beam into seven smaller beams that are rotated around the treatment area (similar to how a showerhead splits the main water stream into smaller streams).

The Wavelight Allegretto Advantage

The Wavelight Allegretto laser, with its narrow 0.95mm beam literally dances, across the cornea.

Advantages of the Wavelight Allegretto LASIK Laser

The laser works at a repetition rate of 200 HZ. This makes the Wavelight Allegretto, the fastest laser for vision correction in the United States. For added safety the laser has an extremely fast eye tracker that can respond to any eye movement in only 6 milliseconds. Dr. Ashraf uses this combin- ation of speed, precision, and safety to create the desired visual correction.

Combination of speed, precision and safety.

WaveLight Allegretto Excimer LASIK Laser System

The Atlanta Vision Institute is dedicated to providing state-of-the-art technology to achieve the best possible outcomes. It is for this reason that we have chosen the WaveLight Allegretto system in our clinic. Excimer lasers differ in a number of ways, but conventional excimer laser treatments use the same formulas to treat every person with the same optical prescription. With the advent of wavefront-guided custom treatments in 2002, refractive surgeons were suddenly able to address unique imperfections in each patient's optical pathway. Soon physicians began discussing the possibility of taking human sight beyond the traditional bounds of 20/20.

Now, for the first time since 1999, an entirely new excimer laser platform has received regulatory approval in the United States: the Wavelight laser represents a new generation in laser vision technology, it was conceived right from the start for custom treatments and incorporates wavefront principles into each procedure while adjusting the treatment to the patients's corneal curvature.

The first wavefront-guided treatment was performed by a Wavelight excimer laser in 1999 and since then the company has taken this technology to a new level. The Wavelight excimer laser system was specifically designed to perform wavefront-optimized ablation profiles. With a repetition rate of 200 pulses per second, WaveLight's laser is the fastest on the US market today. It operates three to four times as fast as other competing laser systems with similar spot sizes (0.95-mm) and can treat one diopter of prescription every 4 seconds. This rapid treatment speed translates into less dehydration of the corneal bed and improved refractive predictability due to fewer hydration changes. Also the increased speed of the treatment leads to increased patient comfort - with less time under the laser. In summary, the laser is very reliable, extremely quick, highly accurate, and has a fast-responding infrared eye tracker.

The Allegretto laser system was granted final FDA approval in October 2003. It was the first US system to receive concurrent approval for a broad range of nearsightedness and farsightedness, with and without astigmatism. The FDA data that was submitted demonstrated that "visual outcomes were better than data we have seen in the past from competitor's lasers," said Tom Liolios, Senior Director of Ophthalmic Marketing at Lumenis. "The Allegretto's new larger treatment zone of eight mm is also appealing." Moreover, "the scanning algorithm does not consume as much tissue as older lasers, so one can perform surgery on higher myopes and hyperopes," he explained. "The big fear with most excimer lasers is that if you try to treat too high of a prescription, you end up with instability. This does not seem to be the case with the Allegretto."

Allegretto WaveLight technology also features a unique approach to corneal sculpting. The normal curvature of a healthy cornea is prolate or higher in the center. Most laser systems flatten centrally to create an oblate cornea. This oblate shape causes spherical aberration, which degrades the quality of vision, especially at night, and often produces glare or halos. The Allegretto laser not only treats the cornea centrally, but also peripherally. The laser uses proprietary nomograms to adjust the asphericity of the cornea to perform a prolate ablation based on the anterior curvature readings. This prolate curvature, in part, accounts for the excellent quality of vision during the day and night.

The Wavelight Allegretto utilizes Perfect Pulse technology. Based on extensive empirical research, Wavelight developed a proprietary energy management program. During the treatment energy stability is controlled with a smart energy control program. This program automatically balances the energy levels during the treatment to ensure that every laser pulse creates the same result. Temperature and humidity levels affect most excimer lasers. A recent study in the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery revealed that these environmental factors can affect LASIK outcomes. The investigators reported that a 10 percent increase in humidity resulted in a 9% increase in an enhancement or additional corrective surgery. With Perfect Pulse technology, the Wavelight Allegretto maintains the laser energy level independent of the room temperature or humidity. This can result in stable results as compared to other competing laser systems.

Wavelight Allegretto Advantage - Patient Safety

Our eyes are constantly making small, rapid jumps called saccadic eye movements. These movements are beyond your control and may affect the result of your surgery. This advanced laser uses a high speed, precise infrared active eye tracking system with a response time of less than 6 milliseconds. This eye tracker neutralizes these fine eye movements to assure a quality treatment and increased patient safety.

A small diameter laser beam, also known as spot size, is very important for both accuracy and smoothness. The ideal beam size is 1 millimeter or less. While beam size is critical, so is the type of laser beam that is being used. A gaussian beam allows for the smoothest corneal surface as compared to non-gaussian beams. The result is that with a small beam less than 1 millimeter with a gaussian profile allows for the proper and accurate treatment of the smallest curvatures of the cornea and also allowing for a smooth corneal surface.

This laser can effectively treat people with larger pupils. The expanded optical zones allow for larger treatment zones, up to 8mm, which can minimize glare, haloes, and potential night vision problems. Many patients with high prescriptions who previously were not candidates because of unacceptable risks of visual side effects are now candidates with the advent of this new laser technology.

The Atlanta Vision Institute is proud to provide the Wavelight Allegretto laser. We are committed to providing the latest technology to insure the best possible visual outcomes for our patiens. We are excited to be one of the first laser vision correction centers in the U.S. to provide this new and exciting technology to our patients.