[Automatic compensation for the effect of eye movements in laser keratotomy]

In refractive laser surgery of the human cornea, especially in radial keratotomy, one major problem comes arises as a result of the patient's eye movements. If drugs to paralyze the muscles should be avoided, the laser beam must correspond with the eye movements. Here we present a closed loop tracking system, which uses an additional infrared optics to record the movements and a two-dimensional mechanically driven mirror to follow them. The functional principle and performance data are presented. The influence of different kinds of tracking on the therapy results are briefly discussed.