AMO approved on Lasik for nearsightedness

SANTA ANA, Calif., July 18 (UPI) -- U.S. firm Advanced Medical Optics said Wednesday its CustomVue Monovision Procedure is OK'd as the first Lasik surgery for age-related nearsightedness.

The eye-care company said the Food and Drug Administration has approved the wavefront-guided laser vision correction procedure to treat myopic presbyopic patients with and without astigmatism.

The new device uses laser to map, and then correct nearsightedness in the dominant eye, and then partially correct the problem in the other eye, reducing the patient's need for reading glasses and contact lenses.

"The Advanced CustomVue(TM) Monovision procedure is the only FDA-approved wavefront-guided LASIK treatment for the correction of both near and distance vision of presbyopic patients," said Jim Mazzo, AMO chairman, president and CEO.

Presbyopia -- which gets its name from the Greek word for "aging eye" -- begins to affect people in their 40s and is marked by a loss of flexibility of the eye's lens, which gradually decreases a person's ability to focus on objects up-close.

About 90 million people in the United States have the condition, and almost one-third are candidates for the Lasik procedure, the company said.