Zeiss is celebrating two new milestones in refractive technology, with 1.5 million SMILE laser vision corrections worldwide and the production of its 1000th VisuMax femtosecond laser.

“We are delighted that doctors worldwide have applied the minimally invasive laser correction procedure over 1.5 million times for the treatment of ametropia,” says Jim Mazzo, head of ophthalmic devices at Carl Zeiss Meditec.

Zeiss says it is also setting performance benchmarks in corneal surgery with VisuMax, the only approved femtosecond laser on the market to treat ametropia using the minimally invasive procedure which comprises creating a thin, lenticular disc (lenticule) in the cornea, which is extracted by the surgeon through a small incision in the corneal surface also created by the laser. The virtually intact corneal surface minimises disruption to the biomechanics of the cornea, it says.