Heidelberg Engineering device identifies at-risk corneas

Heidelberg Engineering and researchers from the Rothschild Foundation in Paris have developed a device to make the risk assessment of post-Lasik corneal ectasia in refractive surgery patients more exact and objective.

Since 2018, Drs Alain Saad and Damien Gatinel have partnered with Heidelberg to develop the Score Analyzer (Screening of Corneal Objective Risk of Ectasia), based on data from more than 5,000 refractive surgery patients.

Score combines multiple parameters, including anterior and posterior corneal elevations, anterior axial curvature, pachymetry maps and profiles. Normal corneas are registered at a measurement threshold of zero, while positive score values register a cause for suspicion.

Refractive surgeon Alain Saad, said: ‘Until we developed Score the subjective evaluations had been made by individual surgeons. There was no scientifically based objective evaluation. For our study we needed excellent quality and repeatable image acquisition and we were very enthusiastic to work with Heidelberg Engineering and Anterion.’