Did you know? A quarter of the European population suffers from myopia! In France, 39% of the population is affected to varying degrees: a number that has doubled in forty years, according to the National Union of Ophthalmologists.
Urban lifestyle is an aggravating factor in the development of visual problems. In cities, activities lead to spending more time indoors using artificial light, whereas natural light is essential for good vision.
A paradox: young people who have completed higher education show levels of myopia twice as high as those who stopped before.
Of course, glasses allow for the correction of myopia (as well as hyperopia, astigmatism, presbyopia) but they are still a type of external prosthesis with all the inconveniences that entails.
But, as often in the evolution of human life, research and technology have provided a solution to the problem: in this case, it’s refractive surgery that allows for eradicating visual problems at the root and returning to a “normal” state.
The Russian ophthalmologist surgeon Svyatoslav Fyodorov was the inventor of this technology in the 1970s with radial keratotomy.
Since then, other techniques with the use of lasers have followed up to the latest revolutionary technique with the evocative name SMILE which has just been launched.
What is it about? Instead of sculpting the cornea with photo-ablation (PRK or Lasik techniques), the SMILE technique involves removing through a micro-incision a thin layer of the cornea, cut by laser, corresponding to the degree of myopia to be corrected.
The procedure only lasts 24 seconds per eye and 1 minute for the extraction of the lenticule. The patient only undergoes local anesthesia.
Being minimally invasive, this technique allows resuming activities the day after the procedure.
It might seem like magic but it’s simply applied technology.
Since the invention of refractive surgery by Fiodorov, 50 million people worldwide have regained perfect vision, 200,000 of whom have used the SMILE technique, which remains the most advanced to date.
Nice is the only city in the south of France where there is a center* equipped and using this revolutionary technique.
There are 24 others in France and about a hundred in Europe.
