Dr. Holzman Discusses Corneal Inlays

Post date: Jul 06, 2014 1:13:11 AM

Coinciding with the recent FDA panel review of the KAMRA corneal inlay, Dr. Holzman presented a lecture on inlays at the Tysons Corner Center on Monday, June 16. The KAMRA corneal inlay uses a small aperture device to increase one's depth of field. If you go all the way back to first-year optometry school optics (which I totally loved, by the way), you will recall that increased depth of field gives you a wider range of focused detail. It's the optics behind checking VA by pinhole or when our patient's squint to make things clearer.

When the inlay is implanted into the non-dominant eye, it gives the patient increased depth of field at near to allow increased reading ease WITHOUT changes in the distance vision. This is unique as all the other forms of presbyopia correction ... multifocal IOLs, monovision, multifocal LASIK, etc ... all give you some degradation of distance vision in order to gain the near range. Here, it looks like you can get near without taking away from distance!

KAMRA is the primary inlay available, and it is the furthest along in the FDA approval process. The FDA panel that met in June has not yet approved the KAMRA for use in the USA. I'm thinking that the KAMRA team will need to address some open questions and return to the panel to hopeful get approval in the future. As with all free markets, there are two new companies entering the inlay field. Since their companies are newer, their products are early on in the FDA process. They way their inlays work is different from the KARMA, and we'll learn more about those inlays as they progress.

Our very own affiliate, Dr. Ryan Odil, Ballston, VA, actually saw a patient with a KARMA inlay. His patient had it done in Canada as part of the clinical trials there. According to Dr. Odil, examination of a patient with an inlay requires some creative adjustments. His patient really loved the inlay and its near benefits. Thanks to Dr. Odil for helping us put the lecture together. Below is a pic of his patient's inlay:

Thank you also to Dr. Joanna Wen for holding on having her baby until the day after the CE lecture. She kept saying that she thought she was having contractions, but you know, I was all in my own head concerned about making sure that all of Dr. Holzman's videos worked for the lecture, so it didn't really click in my head that she might actually go into labor right then and there. Thank goodness for the timing because I'm not really sure about Dr. Holzman's OB skills, you know. : ) - jw