Apparatus for patterned plasma-mediated laser ophthalmic surgery
A system for ophthalmic surgery on an eye includes: a pulsed laser which produces a treatment beam; an OCT imaging assembly capable of creating a continuous depth profile of the eye; an optical scanning system configured to position a focal zone of the treatment beam to a targeted location in three dimensions in one or more floaters in the posterior pole. The system also includes one or more controllers programmed to automatically scan tissues of the patient's eye with the imaging assembly; identify one or more boundaries of the one or more floaters based at least in part on the image data; iii. identify one or more treatment regions based upon the boundaries; and operate the optical scanning system with the pulsed laser to produce a treatment beam directed in a pattern based on the one or more treatment regions.
1. A laser surgical system for making incisions in ocular tissues during a cataract surgical procedure, the system comprising:
a laser operable to generate a laser beam for incising and imaging ocular tissue;
a scanning assembly operable to direct a focal zone of the laser beam to locations within a patient's eye;
an imaging device comprising a detector for detecting image data; and
a control system operably coupled to the laser, the scanning assembly, and the detector; the control system being configured to:
operate the laser beam to generate image data for ocular tissue to be detected by the detector, the image data including lens image data;
process the image data to determine an anterior capsulotomy scanning pattern for scanning the focal zone of the laser beam for performing an anterior capsulotomy; and
operate the laser and the scanning assembly to scan the focal zone of the laser beam in the anterior capsulotomy scanning pattern so as to perform the anterior capsulotomy, wherein positioning of the focal zone is guided by the control system based on the image data.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the laser beam has a wavelength between 800 nm and 1,100 nm, wherein the laser beam comprises pulses having pulse energy between 1.0 micro joules and 30 micro joules, wherein the laser beam comprises pulses having a pulse duration between about 100 femtoseconds and about 10 picoseconds, and wherein the laser beam comprises pulses having a repetition rate between 1 kHz and about 200 kHz.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the imaging device is an optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging device, and the laser beam is used to incise ocular tissue and to provide a sample input and a reference input to the OCT imaging device to generate the image data.
4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the scanning assembly is used to scan the laser beam in ocular tissues so as to provide the sample input to the OCT imaging device to generate the image data.
5. The system of claim 4 , wherein:
the control system is configured to control the scanning assembly to scan the laser beam relative to the lens to provide the sample input to the imaging device to generate three-dimensional location data for the anterior capsule of the lens of the patient's eye; and
the control system is configured to determine the anterior capsulotomy scanning pattern based on the three-dimensional location data for the anterior capsule.
6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the laser beam is scanned across the lens to provide the sample input to the imaging device to the generate three-dimensional location data for the anterior capsule.
7. The system of claim 4 , wherein:
the scanning assembly comprises a z-axis scanning device and a transverse scanning device, the z-axis device being operable to move the focal zone of the laser beam parallel to the direction of propagation of the laser beam, the transverse scanning device being operable to scan the location of the focal zone transverse to the direction of propagation of the laser beam; and
the laser beam propagates along an optical path in which the z-axis scanning device is disposed between the imaging device and the transverse scanning device.
8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the scanning assembly is used to scan the laser beam in ocular tissues so as to provide the sample input to the imaging device to generate the image data.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein:
the control system is configured to control the scanning assembly to scan the imaging light relative to the lens to provide the sample input to the imaging device to generate three-dimensional location data for the anterior capsule of the lens of the patient's eye; and
the control system is configured to determine the anterior capsulotomy scanning pattern based on the three-dimensional location data for the anterior capsule.
10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the imaging light is scanned across the lens to provide the sample input to the imaging device to the generate three-dimensional location data for the anterior capsule.
11. The system of claim 8 , wherein:
the scanning assembly comprises a z-axis scanning device and a transverse scanning device, the z-axis device being operable to move a focal zone of the imaging light parallel to the direction of propagation of the imaging light, the transverse scanning device being operable to scan the location of the focal zone of the imaging light transverse to the direction of propagation of the imaging light; and
the imaging light propagates along an optical path in which the z-axis scanning device is disposed between the imaging device and the transverse scanning device.
12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the imaging device is an OCT imaging device, and the OCT imaging device employs time domain OCT or frequency domain OCT.
13. The method of claim 2 , wherein the OCT imaging device employs time domain OCT or frequency domain OCT.
14. A method for incising ocular tissue during a cataract surgical procedure, the method comprising:
generating a laser beam operable for incising and imaging ocular tissue,
deflecting the laser beam to generate image data of ocular tissue with an imaging device, the image data including lens interior image data for an interior portion of the lens of a patient's eye;
processing the image data via a control system so as to generate an anterior capsulotomy scanning pattern for scanning a focal zone of a laser beam for performing an anterior capsulotomy, the imaging device being operatively coupled to the control system;
deflecting the laser beam to scan the focal zone of the laser beam in the anterior capsulotomy scanning pattern so as to perform the anterior capsulotomy, wherein positioning of the focal zone is controlled by the control system based on the image data.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the laser beam has a wavelength between 800 nm and 1,100 nm, wherein the laser beam comprises pulses having pulse energy between 1.0 micro joules and 30 micro joules, wherein the laser beam comprises pulses having a pulse duration between about 100 femtoseconds and about 10 picoseconds, and wherein the laser beam comprises pulses having a repetition rate between 1 kHz and about 200 kHz.
16. The method of claim 14 , wherein the laser beam provides a sample input and a reference input to the imaging device to generate the image data.
17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising scanning the laser beam in ocular tissue so as to provide the sample input to the imaging device to generate the image data.
18. The method of claim 15 , wherein the laser beam is scanned across the lens to provide the sample input to the imaging device to generate the image data.
19. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:
processing the image data via the control system to generate three-dimensional location data for the anterior capsule of the lens; and
generating the anterior capsulotomy scanning pattern based on the three-dimensional location data for the anterior capsule.
20. The method of claim 17 , wherein said scanning the laser beam in ocular tissue so as to provide the sample input to the imaging device to generate the image data comprises:
operating a z-axis scanning device to move the focal zone of the laser beam parallel to the direction of propagation of the laser beam; and
operating a transverse scanning device to scan the focal zone of the laser beam transverse to the direction of propagation of the laser beam,
wherein the laser beam propagates along an optical path in which the z-axis scanning device is disposed between the OCT imaging device and the transverse scanning device.
21. The method of claim 14 , wherein the imaging device is an OCT imaging device.