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4/1/2000 - Dr. Alan W. Brown Performs New Surgery Overseas

In a continuing pursuit of new procedures to correct nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism, Dr. Alan W. Brown of Surgical Eye Care, P.A., completed a training and mission trip in the Dominican Republic. During his three-day stay, Dr. Brown received advanced training in the newest technique of refractive surgery - Intraocular Lens Surgery (ICL) at the Elias Santana Hospital in Santo Domingo. In this procedure, a contact lens is placed behind the iris, the colored part of the eye that surrounds the pupil, and in front of the eye's natural lens. The ICL was developed by Staar Surgical. Dr. Brown has just recently reviewed post-op results from his two patients in the Dominican. Before the surgeries, both were deemed "count fingers" patients, which means while standing just a foot or so away, they could barely count the number of fingers a doctor was holding up; they also could not read a typical vision chart. The degree of nearsightedness in these patients was very severe. They required about twice the upper limit of correction possible with other procedures like LASIK. Postoperatively both patients saw better than they had ever seen with glasses or contacts. These patients were not LASIK candidates. Intraocular Contact Lens Surgery is yet to be approved in the United States. It has already been approved in Canada and the next step is approval in the U.S. The procedure is in the last leg of the FDA approval process. Dr. Brown was chosen for advanced training by Staar Surgical so that he will be able to train other surgeons once FDA trials are over. (Alan W. Brown, M.D. photo to the left)