ESCRS 2023: Talking next-generation femtosecond lasers for corneal refractive surgery with Prof Rohit Shetty

Vienna, Austria, served as a resplendent backdrop for this year’s European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) meeting. Prof Rohit Shetty was happy to be in the city, and to chat with Ophthalmology Times Europe about some of the latest advancements in refractive surgery.

Editor’s note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Rohit Shetty: Hi, I'm Dr Rohit Shetty from Bangalore, India. Very excited to be at ESCRS Vienna. It's a fantastic city, very vibrant.

I'm very excited to present multiple things this year. First of all, it's been my association with the ELITA™ SILK, which takes up a huge chunk of my work and presentation this year. Apart from that, we are doing something on different femtoseconds, we're doing–working on OCTs, we're working on molecular pathways. So a wide array of things which we are working on, which we are going to showcase this year. What we are very excited about with ELITA is the outcome of data, what we have...with the surgeries we have done, close to 2 years back and the results, what you're getting, it's fantastic. In terms of the way the biconvex shape is shaping up, in terms of quality of vision, the depth of focus, the nerve regeneration, the cornea, to how it feels, everything is making it really fantastic, apart from all the other aspects of ease of dissection, and no dissection, partly dissection. And all these factors are adding up to making it a fantastic tool for the refractive surgeon. And that's what we are–we are sharing our data. That's what everybody's excited about.

When you come to a meeting like ESCRS...ESCRS [is] going to be the most futuristic meeting. And what happens in the rest of the world, 4 years, 5 years later, happens here at the very, very beginning. So when you look at these technologies, you know that, you know, I can pick this up and...start trying to bring it up into clinical use next year. So I'm excited about new femtosecond lasers, excited about some new optics, excited about new platforms which are emerging. And I'm just waiting to know, to use my hands on all these machines, and trying to bring it to, the bring it to the market, bring it to my patients, and also share those data hopefully next year.