SPOTLIGHT ON TECHNOLOGY & TECHNIQUE

BIOM Ready’s motto: easy does it

The wide-angle Oculus viewing system is disposable, snaps into place.

By Robert Stoneback, Associate Editor

Using the Oculus BIOM Ready disposable viewing system couldn’t be easier, says Nick Tosi, MD, a retina specialist with Retina and Vitreous Consultants in Milwaukee, Wisc.

This wide-angle system, which fits most major brands of microscopes, easily secures into place on an ophthalmic microscope, streamlining set-up for his operating room staff.

Older viewing systems can be difficult to set up and intraoperatively manipulate, especially for staff members who aren’t as familiar with the OR setting, he says.

But the BIOM Ready system and its attached HD lens is disposable. The staff member simply gets rid of the old lens, takes the new one out of its sterile blister pack and attaches it.

Dr. Tosi’s colleagues at his clinic appreciate its ease of use; they also like that the BIOM Ready system does not need to be sterilized. Results with the BIOM Ready can also be duplicated in every case due to its disposable nature — there’s almost no erosion on the device‘s lens since each is only used once.

“You’re ensured the clarity of the lens,” says Dr. Tosi. “I have seen situations where non-disposable lenses have developed a lot of wear and tear, which ultimately impedes your surgical view during operations.”

WIDE, OPEN FIELDS

Dr. Tosi knows many retina surgeons who trained with and still only use handheld lenses for all their vitrectomies. It’s more difficult to surgically assess the retina with those systems, however, due to their smaller field of view. The BIOM Ready lens’ wide-angle view “makes performing a peripheral vitrectomy very easy in all cases,” says Dr. Tosi.

The detailed peripheral view provided by the BIOM Ready allows a thorough, near-immediate evaluation of anterior retinal pathology, including pathologies that might otherwise be easily overlooked, in all types of vitrectomy surgery, Dr. Tosi says. This wide angle visualization also offers thorough panretinal photocoagulation in diabetic cases, and efficient laser treatment of all retinal tears.

The lens requires minimal adjusting and, unlike other viewing systems he has used, rarely fogs.

FLUID MOTIONS

The BIOM Ready also features an adjustment arm. “The fluidity of how this moves around works very well in the OR,” Dr. Tosi says.

This is especially helpful when he needs to perform a 360-degree shave of the vitreous base.

“The mobile arm that swings around 360 degrees allows the assistant to better tend to the scleral depression portion of the vitrectomy case as well,” making the surgery less cumbersome and awkward for the surgeon. He says this is not the case with other viewing systems that use bulkier arms.

Dr. Tosi uses about 10 BIOM Readys a week, one for each vitrectomy.

He’s been using the viewing system for every vitrectomy case for the past year.

“I’ve been happy with the results,” he says.

The Oculus BIOM Ready viewing system is compatible with “virtually every ophthalmic microscope,” according to Oculus. These include all Zeiss, Alcon, Leica, Topcon, Möller-Wedel GmbH (Haag-Streit), Takagi and Kaps ophthalmic microscopes.

According to the Oculus website, the lens is available for either a f = 175 mm or f = 200 microscope objective lens. The BIOM Ready received its U.S. patent in April, according to its website. OM