Focus Clinics, a laser eye surgery practice based in London, has become the first clinic in the UK to perform ray-tracing-guided LASIK surgery. This groundbreaking technology has demonstrated the potential to achieve vision surpassing the standard 20/20 benchmark in most patients.

“I have been an eye surgeon for 35 years, and I think this is the single biggest leap forward in laser eye surgery that I have seen since the invention of LASIK,” said David Allamby, founder of Focus Clinics.

For the first time, an entire human organ, the eye, has been digitised. This technology creates a digital twin that replicates an individual’s unique visual optics, enabling the customisation of LASIK treatments tailored to each patient. Remarkably, the majority of patients achieve what is termed “supervision”, with visual acuity better than 20/20.

This innovative approach employs a new eye scanner, the Sightmap, which captures over 100,000 data points to construct a precise digital model of the patient’s eye anatomy. The digital twin traces up to 2,000 rays of light, analysing their paths as they are refracted and focused by the cornea and lens.

The ray-tracing data allows for unprecedented precision in customising the laser treatment applied to the cornea. The system adjusts each of the 2,000 rays, recalculating how every beam is refracted, aiming to focus all rays accurately on the fovea, the central part of the retina responsible for detailed vision.

To date, Allamby has treated over 60 patients using this new technology.

“These are the best results we’ve ever seen from LASIK. We can test and refine the procedure many times on a functioning digital eye clone before the patient ever goes near the laser room. The optics are so good, night vision actually improves after surgery. We’ve never seen that before,” he noted.

A clinical study published in the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery found that this technique enabled 8% of treated eyes to achieve 20/10 vision – the pinnacle of human visual acuity, rarely attained with traditional LASIK procedures. Over half of the participants achieved 20/12 vision, approaching the 20/10 mark.

Notably, every eye in the study reached 20/20 vision or better. The study also found that 89% of eyes achieved 20/16 vision or better, while 51% reached 20/12.5 vision or better. Notably, 8% of eyes attained 20/10 vision, which represents the highest level of visual acuity achievable in humans.

These results pertain to individual eyes; binocular vision (using both eyes) showed even better outcomes.

“We’re thrilled to be the first in the UK to offer this revolutionary technology,” said Allamby. “The potential to achieve vision far better than 20/20 in the majority of patients is great news.”

The ray-tracing technique enables surgeons to correct not only basic refractive errors, such as shortsightedness and astigmatism, but also subtle imperfections in the eye’s optics. Importantly, the study found that this approach produced excellent results while inducing fewer unwanted visual side effects compared to traditional LASIK.