With the 2024 American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) annual meeting kicking off this weekend, ZEISS Medical Technology is highlighting a few of its recent digital and surgical solutions launched this past year.
Included among these are innovations targeting the cataract, corneal refractive, glaucoma, and retinal workflows—with patient management and personalized care at the core.
Let’s start with new products.
A new addition to the company’s digital portfolio is ZEISS VisioGen.
What it is: An artificial intelligence (AI)-based software solution for boosting refractive patient communication and streamlining clinic operations.
- How AI comes into play: Generative AI (GenAI) is used to perform patient acquisition-as-a-service (ie: a marketing-based strategy for clinical practices to draw in new patients as well as increase their patient base and revenue).
Explain how this works.
The solution offers digital communications for clinicians to relay fast, higher-quality, and personalized responses to patients—ideally allowing for clinics to “respond more effectively to patient inquiries while converting more patients to consultations.”
The GenAI technology is incorporated with “substantiated and verified content” from ZEISS that, in turn, generates draft responses to patient queries for clinical staff to use.
Advantages to this: Saving clinical staff time, preventing grammatical errors in responses to patient questions, as well as more tailored responses specific to individual practices.
Nice! Let’s move on to recently-approved products …
Most recently (as in, just last month), ZEISS introduced a new lens extraction technology.
The product: MICOR 700 from ZEISS, designed as the first hand-held lens removal device with ultrasound-free operation.
The details: The company notes that the device provides “gentle lens extraction” and a “gentler patient experience” via advanced features and is intended to be used during the ZEISS NULEX (non-ultrasonic lens extraction) procedure.
- Details on that procedure here.
And the key component? Its patented crystalline lens extraction technology uses a novel method (referred to as “cavitation-free oscillation”) that enables the device to remove a lens without ultrasound.
See our coverage on this for more details (including what surgeons have to say about it).
And there was another approval earlier in the year, right?
Good memory! Indeed there was: The VISUMAX 800 with small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) pro software, designed to surgically treat nearsightedness with or without astigmatism.
The details: FDA-approved in January 2024, this next-generation femtosecond laser system is marketed as having “the most advanced, fastest laser speed compared to its predecessors.”
- Plus SMILE pro: The system provides both faster treatment (creating a lenticule in < 10 seconds via higher pulse repetition rate) and the potential for reducing stress on both patients and surgeons (with a smaller footprint in the clinical space).
Now, I heard about additions to ZEISS’s microscope portfolio …
You heard right. The company has been busy expanding its ophthalmic and optical surgical microscopes with two newcomers:
ZEISS ARTEVO 850 3D heads-up ophthalmic microscope:
- At a glance: Heads-up surgery combines with customizable 3D visualization; digital integration into the ZEISS Ophthalmic Workflows; and intuitive navigation and productivity featuring a redesigned ZEISS CALLISTO eye user interface—accessible via a single touchscreen.
The highlights:
- Natural color representation (with a high dynamic range [HDR] monitor)
- Hybrid mode to switch between 3D visualization and viewing through real optical oculars (with operating room viewing live on a 3D monitor)
- Intraoperative optical coherence tomography (OCT) for real-time monitoring
- Digital color assistant (DCA) for surgical field visualization with digital color coding
- Smart depth of field (DoF) setting
And the second microscope?
We present: the ARTEVO 750 optical surgical microscope.
At a glance: This features a red-green-blue (RGB) light-emitting diode (LED) illumination for different light color temperatures with light tailorable depending on a clinician’s surgical profile as well as the Stereo Coaxial Illumination (SCI).
- Note: SCI is ZEISS’s technology designed to improve red reflex and allows for more detailed visualization of the eye during surgery.
Tell me more.
The microscope features AdVision, a system that conveys surgical data to a clinician’s eyepiece at a 40% higher resolution and contrast.
Other components include:
- Surgeon-controlled assistance functions (via the push of a button)
- ZEISS CALLISTO eye user interface with redesigned graphical interface
- Digital integration into the ZEISS Cataract Workflow
Move on to the ZEISS Retina Workflow; What’s new?
Introducing: the DORC EVA NEXUS surgical system.
At a glance: Referred to as a “highly intelligent ophthalmic surgical system,” the latest addition to DORC’s vitreoretinal portfolio is a “responsive technology platform” based on the VacuFlow VTi technology.
About that tech: The Valve Timing Intelligence (Vi) pump is responsible for smart fluidics and ensuring no unwanted pulsations or flow (plus constant intraocular pressure [IOP] during vitrectomy).
- Specifically:
- Vacuum mode can be used for vitreous removal and drawing nucleus fragments to the top
- Flow mode controls the flow to 0.1 mI/min accuracy for precision near a mobile retina (and controlled removal of nucleus fragments)
Learn more about the system’s capabilities—including the use of SMART IOP, in which the EVA NEXUS automatically compensates for pressure losses.
Any other notable mentions in this retina workflow?
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the CIRRUS 600 platform, which received an update earlier this year.
At a glance: This FDA-cleared, next-generation OCT/OCT-angiography (OCTA) system features a camera capture rate that’s 100 kHz vs the 5000’s 27kHz—a major advantage for clinicians tracking patients with glaucoma.
Are these commercially available in the United States?
Both devices are noted as FDA-cleared (and CE-marked in the European Union).
Click here and here for details on adding the ARTEVO 850 and 750, respectively, to your practice.
So where can I see these technologies in action?
If you’re attending AAO this weekend, stop by the JJV booth (#4816) in the Exhibit Hall to speak with a representative.
If not, contact the company directly.