Industry News
US Startup Is Developing Hand-Held Eye Testing Device
University of Arizona faculty scientists in the US are working to perfect a new instrument to determine eye prescriptions faster and more accurately, in a portable form, that holds the promise of extending eye care to millions of people worldwide.
The hand-held device is based on an invention of prominent UA ophthalmology professor Dr. Gholam Peyman, who was awarded the first U.S. patent for the laser refractive surgery known as LASIK in 1989.
Peyman and co-inventors Nasser Peyghambarian and James Schweigerling, professors in the UA’s James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences, have formed a new company, iCrx Inc., to commercialize the invention.
Peyman, an ophthalmologist, retinal surgeon and professor at the UA College of Medicine in Phoenix, said the new technology has several major advantages over the mechanical eye-testing devices, know as phoropters or refractors, which were invented in 1921 and are essentially the same today.
The mechanical phoropters use an arrangement of more than 100 lenses on each side, making them bulky, expensive and time-consuming to use, Peyman said. Newer, digital phoropters computerize the process but operate on the same patient-feedback principle and also are bulky and costly.
What’s worse, he says, is that the legacy devices rely on the subjective judgment of the patient to zero in on the proper prescription.
“It is really hard on children, because they can’t concentrate and just don’t pay attention to remember,” Peyman said, adding that the process can also be difficult for patients with poor hearing or who speak different languages.
“I felt that in order to make things simpler, we had to change the process.”
