To analyze complications of femtosecond lasers used for cataract surgery.
Department of Ophthalmology Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.
Retrospective analysis.
Intraoperative complications of ...the first 100 femtosecond laser-assisted (Alcon-Lensx, Inc.) cataract surgeries were collected. Possible complications of femtosecond capsulotomies and their management were also assessed.
The complications were as follows: suction break (2%), conjunctival redness or hemorrhage (34%), capsule tags and bridges (20%), anterior tear (4%), miosis (32%), and endothelial damage due to cut within the endothelial layer (3%). There were no cases of capsule blockage or posterior capsule tear. During the learning curve, there was no complication that would require vitrectomy. All complications occurred during the first 100 cases.
Femtosecond laser cataract surgery had a learning curve during the first 100 cases. With cautious surgical technique, the complications can be avoided. The femtosecond laser-assisted method was efficient and safe for cataract surgery.
The author shares his theory on market creation and evolution from his perspective as an academic and a practitioner who has been involved in financial innovation for five decades. Rather than being ...spontaneously created, markets appear to follow a clear set of steps (the “seven-stage” process) from inception to maturity. It is critical that the benefits from transacting are greater than the costs of establishing the market — otherwise the evolution does not occur. Historical examples of the process outlined by the author can be found in commodity, equity, fixed income and environmental markets. The author provides observations and lessons that his evolutionary framework shares with financial inventive activity in new and existing products in our rapidly evolving digital world. Recent digital innovations such as the blockchain have evolved in a framework that did not require a legislative or regulatory framework (or what the author calls a “permissionless” environment). A properly designed regulatory environment can be permissionless regarding inventive activity (withness the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the United States). A permissionless environment has historical precedent in other “analog” innovations such as wheat trading in the 19th century or financial futures in the mid-1970s. Following the seven-stage process, those innovations arose from structural changes or latent economic demands. Their standards and infrastructure were only much later understood and adopted by the regulators. Given that, the author suggests that since changes now occur at hyper speed, the implications for the future shape of derivatives markets are likely to be profound.
To compare intraocular lens (IOL) decentration and tilt following a circular capsulotomy created with a femtosecond laser (laser CCC) to a manually performed continuous curvilinear capsulorrhexis ...(manual CCC).
In a prospective, randomized study, a laser CCC (Alcon LenSx Inc) was performed in 20 eyes from 20 patients and a manual CCC was performed in 25 eyes from 25 patients. Intraocular lens decentration and tilt were measured using a Scheimpflug camera (Pentacam, Oculus Optikgeräte GmbH) 1 year after surgery. Uncorrected (UDVA) and corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA) and manifest refraction were also determined postoperatively. Between-group differences of IOL decentration and tilt as well as the correlation between IOL decentration and postoperative refractive changes and between IOL tilt and visual acuity were analyzed.
Horizontal and vertical tilt were significantly higher in the manual CCC group (P=.007 and P<.001, respectively). Lenses implanted after manual CCC showed greater horizontal and total decentration (P=.034 and P=.022, respectively). Significant differences were found in the homogeneity of dichotomized IOL vertical tilt and both horizontal and total decentration distribution (P=.008, P=.036, and P=.017, respectively). Total IOL decentration showed a significant correlation with changes in manifest refraction values between 1 month and 1 year after surgery (R=0.33, P=.032). A significant correlation was noted between IOL vertical tilt and CDVA (R(2)=0.17, β=-0.41, 95% confidence limit: -0.69 to -0.13, P=.005).
Continuous curvilinear capsulorrhexis created with a femtosecond laser resulted in a more stable refractive result and less IOL tilt and decentration than manual CCC.
We report the first results of elliptic (v2), triangular (v3), and quadrangular (v4) flow of charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of √sNN=5.02 TeV with ...the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are performed in the central pseudorapidity region |η|<0.8 and for the transverse momentum range 0.2<pT<5 GeV/c. The anisotropic flow is measured using two-particle correlations with a pseudorapidity gap greater than one unit and with the multiparticle cumulant method. Compared to results from Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV, the anisotropic flow coefficients v2, v3, and v4 are found to increase by (3.0±0.6)%, (4.3±1.4)%, and (10.2±3.8)%, respectively, in the centrality range 0%–50%. This increase can be attributed mostly to an increase of the average transverse momentum between the two energies. The measurements are found to be compatible with hydrodynamic model calculations. This comparison provides a unique opportunity to test the validity of the hydrodynamic picture and the power to further discriminate between various possibilities for the temperature dependence of shear viscosity to entropy density ratio of the produced matter in heavy-ion collisions at the highest energies.
We report the measurements of correlations between event-by-event fluctuations of amplitudes of anisotropic flow harmonics in nucleus-nucleus collisions, obtained for the first time using a new ...analysis method based on multiparticle cumulants in mixed harmonics. This novel method is robust against systematic biases originating from nonflow effects and by construction any dependence on symmetry planes is eliminated. We demonstrate that correlations of flow harmonics exhibit a better sensitivity to medium properties than the individual flow harmonics. The new measurements are performed in Pb-Pb collisions at the center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of √ s N N = 2.76 TeV by the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The centrality dependence of correlation between event-by-event fluctuations of the elliptic v2 and quadrangular v4 flow harmonics, as well as of anticorrelation between v2 and triangular v3 flow harmonics are presented. The results cover two different regimes of the initial state configurations: geometry dominated (in midcentral collisions) and fluctuation dominated (in the most central collisions). Comparisons are made to predictions from Monte Carlo Glauber, viscous hydrodynamics, ampt, and hijing models. Together with the existing measurements of the individual flow harmonics the presented results provide further constraints on the initial conditions and the transport properties of the system produced in heavy-ion collisions.
In this Letter, comprehensive results on π±, K±, KS0, p(p¯) and Λ(Λ¯) production at mid-rapidity (0<yCMS<0.5) in p–Pb collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV, measured by the ALICE detector at the LHC, are ...reported. The transverse momentum distributions exhibit a hardening as a function of event multiplicity, which is stronger for heavier particles. This behavior is similar to what has been observed in pp and Pb–Pb collisions at the LHC. The measured pT distributions are compared to d–Au, Au–Au and Pb–Pb results at lower energy and with predictions based on QCD-inspired and hydrodynamic models.
The aim of our review article was to summarize the current literature on Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS) and its severe form, toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). SJS/TEN is a serious, rare multi-system, ...immune-mediated, mucocutaneous disease with a significant mortality rate that can lead to severe ocular surface sequelae and even to bilateral blindness. Restoration of the ocular surface in acute and chronic SJS/TEN is challenging. There are only limited local or systemic treatment options for SJS/TEN. Early diagnosis, timely amniotic membrane transplantation and aggressive topical management in acute SJS/TEN are necessary to prevent long-term, chronic ocular complications. Although the primary aim of acute care is to save the life of the patient, ophthalmologists should regularly examine patients already in the acute phase, which should also be followed by systematic ophthalmic examination in the chronic phase. Herein, we summarize actual knowledge on the epidemiology, aetiology, pathology, clinical appearance and treatment of SJS/TEN.
The production of Ξ− and Ω− baryons and their anti-particles in Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV has been measured using the ALICE detector. The transverse momentum spectra at mid-rapidity (|y|<0.5) ...for charged Ξ and Ω hyperons have been studied in the range 0.6<pT<8.0 GeV/c and 1.2<pT<7.0 GeV/c, respectively, and in several centrality intervals (from the most central 0–10% to the most peripheral 60–80% collisions). These spectra have been compared with the predictions of recent hydrodynamic models. In particular, the Kraków and EPOS models give a satisfactory description of the data, with the latter covering a wider pT range. Mid-rapidity yields, integrated over pT, have been determined. The hyperon-to-pion ratios are similar to those at RHIC: they rise smoothly with centrality up to 〈Npart〉∼150 and saturate thereafter. The enhancements (yields per participant nucleon relative to those in pp collisions) increase both with the strangeness content of the baryon and with centrality, but are less pronounced than at lower energies.
Here, transverse momentum (pT) spectra of pions, kaons, and protons up to pT = 20GeV/c have been measured in Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN = 2.76TeV using the ALICE detector for six different centrality ...classes covering 0%–80%. The proton-to-pion and the kaon-to-pion ratios both show a distinct peak at pT ≈ 3GeV/c in central Pb-Pb collisions that decreases for more peripheral collisions. For pT > 10GeV/c, the nuclear modification factor is found to be the same for all three particle species in each centrality interval within systematic uncertainties of 10%–20%. This suggests there is no direct interplay between the energy loss in the medium and the particle species composition in the hard core of the quenched jet. For pT < 10GeV/c, the data provide important constraints for models aimed at describing the transition from soft to hard physics.