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SCIENCE UPDATE
End in sight for reading glasses
Millions of middle-aged Britons could soon be able to throw away their reading glasses.
A new treatment, which reverses the damage caused to the eyes by ageing, has now become available in this country.
The painless procedure, called conductive keratoplasty (CK), uses radio waves to reshape the eye without surgery.
The treatment lasts just five minutes and costs between £1,000 and £1,500.
Doctors believe it could eclipse laser correction treatment in terms of popularity.
An estimated 18 million Britons need glasses to help them to read as they become long-sighted with advancing age.
The condition affects one in four people over the age of 45 and one in three of those over 55. By aged 60, half of all people need to invest in a pair of reading glasses.
This latest technique, developed in the United States, offers them an alternative.
Patients are first given anaesthetic drops to numb the eye. Doctors then use a tiny probe, which is as fine as human hair, to emit tightly-focused radio waves at specific points on the surface of the eye around the cornea.
The number of points can range from eight to 32 depending on the severity of long-sightedness.
This heat helps to slightly shrink the collagen in the eye. This in turn squeezes the cornea and steepens its curvature, correcting sight.
The technique can be used on both eyes to correct long-sight. But it can also be used on just one eye. This is particularly useful for people who need glasses to read.
They develop what is called ‘blended vision’. They use one eye to read and the other to see in the distance.
The procedure is painless and patients can return to work or drive home that day. The improvements are almost instant.
The treatment was approved by authorities in the United States and European Union last year.
Studies in the US have shown it significantly improved the sight of nine out of 10 patients and half achieved perfect eyesight.
Doctors in Manchester are the first to offer the treatment. It is expected to be available in London from next month.
“This is the first machine of its kind in the UK,” said Dr David Allamby, medical director of Horizon Eye Laser Centre in Manchester.
“We expect a lot of demand for this treatment. I think it will be bigger than laser correction.”
But Dr Allamby warned that the improvements are not permanent and that patients may have to undergo treatment again after five years.
“It is like winding the clock back five or 10 years. The only thing is in a few years time, patients may have to wind it back again,” he said.
‘Matilda’ dies mysteriously
Australia’s first cloned sheep died despite being in apparent good health. The decomposing carcass was cremated before ascertaining the cause of death, and as such there is no chance of getting to the root of the mysterious death. Critics of animal cloning were surprised that greater efforts were not made to establish the cause of death.
Rob Lewis, executive director of the South Australian Research and Development Institute, said “Matilda” was not found until the day following its death.
An autopsy failed to find any reason for the ewe’s abrupt death and the carcass was cremated because it had decomposed after lying out in the open in hot summer conditions.
“She was very healthy, and very sprightly . . . on the day she died,” Lewis claimed.
“There was nothing that was grossly obvious in the organs and outer body. The body’s been cremated because it was in a very bad state. To be quite honest, it was clearly pongy (smelly), very pongy.”
Matilda became Australia’s first cloned sheep in 2000. It was “created” by technology similar to that which produced Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, in Scotland. Lewis said he did not believe premature aging — an affliction which affected Dolly — lay behind Matilda’s demise.
The cremation of the merino ewe “Matilda” raised eyebrows among opponents of cloning and gene technology, who lamented that there would be no further opportunity to establish what happened.
“Animals don’t die and decompose in five minutes,” said Bob Phelps of the Gene Ethics Network. “That’s not really very plausible.”
NASA focuses on fragment
US investigators have recovered a large piece of one of the space shuttle Columbia’s wings which could provide important clues to the cause of the disaster.
Investigators are working to establish which wing the piece belonged to.
NASA appeared to play down a fresh piece of photographic evidence which reportedly shows serious structural damage to the shuttle’s left wing.
The wing fragment recovered from the Fort Worth, Texas, area features:
— 66-68.5 cm of carbon-composite panel which reinforces the leading edges of space shuttle wings for thermal protection during the searing heat of atmospheric re-entry.
— 46 cm of actual wing structure.
NASA is also studying a close-up image taken by a powerful ground-based US Air Force camera in New Mexico as the shuttle re-entered the atmosphere.
But the agency has said that it was too early to assess its worth.
The fuzzy, batwing-shaped silhouette of the shuttle appears to show a dark grey streak behind the left wing.
However, shuttle programme manager Ron Dittemore said it would take further study to determine whether the image showed a problem with the shuttle, and if the streak was from Columbia or only a technical aberration in the photograph. — Dawn ScienceDotcom Report
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