Femtosecond laser cataract surgery: updates on technologies and outcomes.

PURPOSE: To describe femtosecond laser cataract surgery and discuss the published peer-reviewed articles to have a fair evaluation of this new technology and its comparisons to conventional phacoemulsification surgery. METHODS: The technology information released in this article comes from the key individuals in each of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved companies and from the available commercial information. Bibliographic research was performed in PubMed and MEDLINE for the published prospective or retrospective clinical studies. RESULTS: The femtosecond laser has been reported to be safe intraoperatively and postoperatively, with less cornea and macula effect than conventional phacoemulsification. The incision is integrated, stable, and aberration free. Many studies reported the high precision of the capsulotomy over manual continuous curvilinear capsulorhexis, which favors less intraocular lens tilt, higher optical quality, and more accurate premium intraocular lens centration. The lens fragmentation is effective with significant reduction of the phacoemulsification power and effective phacoemulsification time. The refractive difference between femtosecond laser and standard phacoemulsification is minimal, with no difference in corrected distance visual acuity, but the optical quality and the internal aberrations results are significantly better for femtosecond laser phacoemulsification. CONCLUSIONS: Femtosecond laser cataract surgery is a good addition to cataract surgery despite its few remarkable advantages among experienced phacoemulsification surgeons.