The correction of the drooping eyelid through the frontal flap, without visible incisions, has aroused great interest during the recent meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Frontal flap surgery to correct eyelid ptosis or drooping eyelid is a surgical technique that has raised great expectations among those who have recently attended the meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, one of the most important events in the industry. This highly complex surgery, which Dr Ramón Medel, an IMO ophthalmologist, has been developing since 2002, has more and more followers, as it allows complex cases to be treated in a minimally invasive manner: no visible incisions and no need for grafts or external materials to restore the eyelid’s normal position.
400 ptosis cases
“During this period, I have operated on more than 400 cases of eyelid ptosis, a pathology that involves dysfunction of the eyelid levator muscle due to degenerative or congenital causes,” explains Dr Ramón Medel. As he emphasises, “although we perform up to 8 different procedures to treat this problem, the frontal flap is our technique of choice for many children who are born with severe ptosis because of the advantages it offers.”.
This malposition, if not treated within the first year, can prevent the correct development of vision and lead to chronic consequences, such as “lazy eye.” Moreover, Dr Medel, a forerunner of the frontal flap, explains that, “if it does not affect vision, it is very important to correct it before the age of 5 to avoid damage or psychosocial problems, especially in the school environment (bullying), which can have an impact on the psychological development of affected children.”
“The frontal flap is our technique of choice for many children who are born with severe ptosis, due to the benefits it provides.”.
Dr Ramón Medel
Success at the conference of the American Academy of Ophthalmology
The procedure has aroused great interest among the specialists attending the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO 2019) meeting, since, as Dr Medel – the only Western specialist who uses it on a regular basis – concludes, “we have introduced it in Europe in recent years, but it is still little known in the United States. Thus, other options were better valued, such as maximum resection of the levator muscle or frontal suspension with material (silicone), which is the most commonly used technique. However, when explaining and showing the particularities of the frontal flap, the great majority of attendees have selected it, by vote, as the best option, due to the indisputable benefits it offers to the patient.”
IMO Instituto de Microcirugía Ocular
Josep María Lladó, 3
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