Quincy Medical Group Offers Dropless Cataract Surgery

The Oph­thal­mol­o­gy Depart­ment at Quin­cy Med­ical Group now offers Drop­less Cataract Surgery, a new treat­ment option for patients under­go­ing cataract surgery that reduces or elim­i­nates the need for cost­ly pre­scrip­tion eye drops. The time-released med­ica­tion admin­is­tered dur­ing surgery pro­vides con­ve­nience and cost-sav­ings for patients.

“The Drop­less Cataract Surgery is the great­est advance­ment to cataract surgery in years,” said Quin­cy Med­ical Group Oph­thal­mol­o­gist Dr. Abram Geisendor­fer. Dr. Geisendor­fer is one of a team of oph­thal­mol­o­gists at Quin­cy Med­ical Group includ­ing Eric Sieck, MD; and Robert Weller, MD who per­form the surgery.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, patients who under­go cataract surgery must adhere to an eye drop sched­ule that includes sev­er­al types of drops used for three to four weeks. These drops reduce the risk of inflam­ma­tion and infec­tion and are a crit­i­cal part of ensur­ing suc­cess­ful out­comes. How­ev­er, com­pli­ca­tions arise when cataract patients miss a sched­uled dose, are phys­i­cal­ly unable to instill the drops, have to rely on the avail­abil­i­ty of a care­giv­er to admin­is­ter the drops or when the high cost pre­cludes the pur­chase of the pre­scribed drops. ​“The use of these drops after cataract surgery is one of the major incon­ve­niences voiced by patients,” said Dr. Geisendorfer.

The Drop­less Cataract Surgery removes this incon­ve­nience. Dur­ing the surgery, a ster­ile, com­pound­ed for­mu­la­tion of antibi­otics and anti-inflam­ma­to­ry med­ica­tion is deposit­ed in the back of the eye (the vit­re­ous). The time-released deliv­ery of the drugs helps fight infec­tion and inflam­ma­tion dur­ing the recov­ery peri­od. Admin­is­ter­ing the med­ica­tion at the time of surgery elim­i­nates con­cerns about patient com­pli­ance asso­ci­at­ed with the tra­di­tion­al eye drop regimen.

“The intro­duc­tion of this impor­tant treat­ment option helps us reach the ulti­mate goal for our patients – bet­ter vision with­out com­pli­ca­tions and a pos­i­tive patient expe­ri­ence,” said Dr. Geisendorfer.

Helen McFar­land has expe­ri­enced both options. She had the tra­di­tion­al cataract surgery in one of her eyes in Jan­u­ary of 2016. When it came time to look at her oth­er eye, she was giv­en the drop­less option. As pas­tor of Unit­ed Methodist Church in Van­dalia, Mis­souri, she leads a busy life and said the new treat­ment was the best deci­sion for her. ​“With the first surgery, I had to take a series of drops. It wasn’t bad, but it can be time-con­sum­ing,” explained McFar­land. ​“I’m out a lot, so I had to car­ry the drops with me at all times to make sure I didn’t miss a dose.”