Marcelo V. Netto named Troutman Award recipient

Marcelo V. Netto, MD, received the annual Troutman Award this year for his paper describing the findings from wavefront analysis in a population of normal refractive surgery patients.

Established by Richard Troutman, MD, 15 years ago, the Troutman Award is given to the lead author of an outstanding article in the Journal of Refractive Surgery. Candidates are under 45 years of age and a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the International Society of Refractive Surgery.

Introducing Dr. Netto, George O. Waring III, MD, noted his paper establishing normative population statistics was recognized for its contribution as important fundamental research.

Dr. Netto is currently in the cornea and refractive surgery department, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He conducted the study as a fellow at the Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Using the WaveScan WavePrint system (VISX), Dr. Netto and colleagues measured aberrations in 418 eyes of 226 consecutive refractive surgery patients. The study population had a mean age of about 43 years, included a slight majority of men (53%), and had a mean SE of -3.4D

The results showed that while defocus and astigmatism were the predominant aberrations in these patients, the surgical candidates had significant amounts of higher-order aberrations increased with increasing pupil size and patient age, but it was unrelated to patient gender.

"It was clear from this study that these higher-order aberrations could underlie visual complaints in patients who had 20/20 or better uncorrected Snellen acuity," Dr. Netto said.

"Wavefront technology has changed our understanding of visual optics, and using that information to guide customized ablations we are achieving excellent results with all laser platforms," he said. "In the future, we might expect even better outcomes with increased understanding of ocular aberrations along with corneal biomechanics and wound healing. However, we will need visual function tests other than high-contrast Snellen acuity to demonstrate its major benefits."