Low_resolution_Thesis_CDD_221009_public - Visual Optics and ...

CONCLUSIONS
FUTURE RESEARCH LINES
The results can establish the basis for future research line directions:
1. In this thesis we have provided the optical and ablation properties of
plastic materials for refractive surgery models and extrapolated the
results to the cornea. This work opens the path for studies of optical and
ablation properties of corneal tissue, including accurate measurement of
the physics of the ablation in non-normal surfaces and ejection dynamics.
These will provide a better control on the clinical ablative procedures, a
needed step in the search for reliable wavefront optimized corrections.
2. Testing of current wavefront guided clinical procedures in vivo and in
vitro with the methology developed will lead to improved laser ablation
algorithms, and to the design of new wavefront guided strategies.
3. The knowledge gathered on ablation of polymer curved surfaces opens
the possibility for the fabrication of contact lenses of complicated
designs (i.e. free-form, multifocal) by means of laser ablation.
4. The use of the hybrid porcine plastic corneal models, and of newly
validated and calibrated instruments (providing information on both the
anterior and posterior corneal surface) opens the possibility for
quantitative studies of processes where biomechanical effects are
expected to play a role: post-refractive ectasia, assessment of
keratoconus, corneal deformations after long term contact lens wearing
(corneal warpage) or during Ortho-K treatments with inverse geometry
contact lenses, or collagen cross-linking, among others.
5. Application of high resolution anterior segment optical coherence
tomography in the study of contact lens fitting will be essential to
evaluate the discrepancies between the nominal design and the one
measured on eye found in multifocal contact lenses, and the influence of
the tear film on the anterior and posterior surface of the contact lens. The
instrument should be corrected from fan and optical distortion, and
validated for quantitative imaging.
6. The parallel measurements of optical quality and visual performance on
the same subjects (in a wide range of conditions and for different
subjects) reported in this thesis to evaluate through focus performance,
and the associated methodology provide the basis to develop more
sophisticated methods of prediction of the visual outcomes, and
contribute to the understanding of the limits to spatial vision. These
studies will be undertaken with the aid of adaptive-optics, which allow
the manipulation of the optical aberrations (correction and simulation of
multiple corrections, in particular multifocal designs).
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