New Laser Assisted Cataract Surgery Is Superior -- Where In Thailand?

[tropo]

How much does regular cataract surgery cost here in Thailand?

RAM Hospital Chiang Mai

A little while ago I had this procedure performed to remove the cateract and replace an artificial lens in one of my eyes. Still have to get he other sorted - but in time.

For those of you who may be in the same situation the following is the cost that I incurred but subject your own situaion it may differ according to your own circumstances.

I acknowledge that there are other hospitals where this procedure may be performed at a cheaper price but I am a long time user of RAM and have confidence in the surgeons and the facilities.

Both my age and possession of a VIP card attracted a discount but the overall cost was 43,000 baht for the procedure to be performed on one eye. This included a full physical examination before the surgery. The operation lasted approximately 30 minutes and although uncomfortable, I experienced no pain.

The following morning I returned to the Eye Specialist and was able to read the eye chart with my right eye from top to bottom without difficulty.

Gladiator

Thank you. You must be very happy about the result.

[Jingthing]

The prices of the lenses varies greatly and there are different levels of quality and features. These lens implants are intended to hopefully last for life. Interestingly, there is a great doctor in Nepal who has developed a wonderful program of doing free field surgery for poor people, often restoring the sight of people who have been totally blind for five years. He couldn't afford commercial lenses for this program so he led a program to produce his own which are now sold to other poverty programs around the world. The cost of the lenses -- about ONE U.S. dollar. I know, incredible when many of us might spend 1,500 USD for one lens. No, I don't want the dollar lenses but I wonder how the quality compares to an expensive (single focus) lens.

[tig28]

Firstly I would like to thank Jingthing for his efforts in sorting through various info re Cataract Surgery as I too have a personal interest in his efforts.(JT-- Keep up the good work!)

Re: Femtosecond laser in cataract surgery.

Like Jingthing I have been researching Surgeons and methodologies -- I came across this:

Cataract Surgery Complications for Femtosecond Laser Surgery

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Administrator

Early reports from the first centre in Australia to offer femtosecond laser assisted cataract surgery (“lacs”) have shown an exceptionally high rate of minor and major cataract surgery complications, contrary to claims that this technology is safer than traditional cataract surgery. The reported rate of complications is much higher than traditional cataract surgery; in particular there have been at least four cases of “dropped nuclei” from the group of surgeons using the first installed femtosecond laser cataract machine in Australia. Currently there are only two femtosecond cataract lasers in Australia, both located in Sydney. This is a major complication of cataract surgery requiring further surgery by a vitreo-retinal specialist to remove the cataract from the back of the eye. This complication has the potential to adversely affect the patient’s vision. So far there is no published data to support the visual acuity outcomes being better than non-laser assisted cases. There should soon be some early results data from reports from the European society of cataract and refractive surgeons annual meeting in Vienna.

http://www.cataract-...emid=13〈=en

Further:

Cataract Surgery Complications

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Administrator

There continues to be a huge amount of controversy over the place of the new femtosecond laser in cataract surgery in the correspondence of the American society of cataract and refractive surgeons.

American surgeons who have used the laser (many of whom have financial interests in the laser companies) are very enthusiastic about it. Many other surgeons in the USA are very concerned that the laser is more about marketing than real surgery benefits.

There is still no clear evidence that the enormous cost of these machines (half a million dollars) is reflected in the improved results that the laser is supposed to produce. One of the main advantages is said to be a reduction in cataract surgery complications, but with so little data it really is not clear whether the laser does represent a meaningful reduction in the complications of cataract surgery. It is also possible that the laser may cause some new complications itself that have not been seen with current “state of the art” phacoemulsification cataract surgery.

[Jingthing]

OK, finally I have some news about progress in Thailand with this new technology.

I am not one of the skeptics. I reckon in 10 years in advanced countries, most cataract procedures will be using this laser assisted technology.

It is clear that RUTNIN has a machine now.

http://www.rutnin.com/eng/ophthalmologist.php

They are not yet advertising this new technology.

There are two other machines in Thailand but I don't know where yet.

If anyone else knows where the two other machines are, please post.

Anyway, I wouldn't want to be among the first practice patients with this.

But within a year or two, there will probably be some very practiced Thai doctors in this.

http://www.visioneyeinstitute.com.au/thai-surgeons-vision-vision-eye-institute-chatswood/

There are now three laser cataract devices in Thailand that have been installed in the last two months. Having hands-on experience with the procedure, the surgeons at Rutnin Eye Hospital will now begin to perform laser cataract surgery in clinic.

There are currently a number of options for this in Singapore, Malaysia, India, and the Philippines.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Jingthing

[Sheryl]

Bear in mind that when new technologies like this come out, there is a learning curve...and they are only as good as the operator.

Personally I would opt for conventional laser removal of cataract with a very experienced doctor than to be among the first 50 cases someone did with the new machine.....

[keemapoot]

JT, I think the place where I got my lasik has this, TRSC in Bangkok.

http://www.lasikthai.com/cms.php?ref=do:read/id:68

This is an important topic to me as I have had early onset of cataracts due to an eye surgery last year. I have already contacted TRSC about coming in for consultation, and they encouraged me to do so. My opthamologist who did my surgery has not yet commented on this, but I will be looking into it in the next 6 months or so. I will remember this thread and post my findings.

* I may have spoken too soon, this from their website on cataracts:

Cataract surgery is a two-part process. The natural cloudy lens must first be removed, and then a new lens must be implanted. At TRSC, we perform cataract surgery using a method called Phacoemulsification (phaco) to remove the natural lens and then replace it with an intraocular lens (IOL) of your choice. This type of removal requires smaller incisions than traditional cataract surgery, and the entire process is completed in less than 30 minutes. This is the most common form of cataract removal performed around the world today.

Edited July 20, 2013 by keemapoot

[Jingthing]

Bear in mind that when new technologies like this come out, there is a learning curve...and they are only as good as the operator.

Personally I would opt for conventional laser removal of cataract with a very experienced doctor than to be among the first 50 cases someone did with the new machine.....

I totally agree. Maybe that's why they're not advertising anything yet. How do they get people to pay full retail for docs who are practicing?

[Jingthing]

JT, I think the place where I got my lasik has this, TRSC in Bangkok.

http://www.lasikthai.com/cms.php?ref=do:read/id:68

This is an important topic to me as I have had early onset of cataracts due to an eye surgery last year. I have already contacted TRSC about coming in for consultation, and they encouraged me to do so. My opthamologist who did my surgery has not yet commented on this, but I will be looking into it in the next 6 months or so. I will remember this thread and post my findings.

* I may have spoken too soon, this from their website on cataracts:

Cataract surgery is a two-part process. The natural cloudy lens must first be removed, and then a new lens must be implanted. At TRSC, we perform cataract surgery using a method called Phacoemulsification (phaco) to remove the natural lens and then replace it with an intraocular lens (IOL) of your choice. This type of removal requires smaller incisions than traditional cataract surgery, and the entire process is completed in less than 30 minutes. This is the most common form of cataract removal performed around the world today.

Very different than Lasik lasers. These new machines represent a MASSIVE investment.

[bunnaag]

Always ,but always go to India for treatment, depending on day and time of season,can get return air fare for something like 250 bucks. While there get bowel screening,heart stress tested,blood testing, prostate anything that you can think of. Just had op there magnificent,damned cheap too to Thailand.

Contact manufacturer of this machine,ask them other places where they are located, tell the Indians you are a resident of India, they will have a ton of differing prices also medical visa is OK ,bit cheaper

did you have a heart op?if yes rerport which town which hospital do you recommend?

[pinfold]

Always ,but always go to India for treatment, depending on day and time of season,can get return air fare for something like 250 bucks. While there get bowel screening,heart stress tested,blood testing, prostate anything that you can think of. Just had op there magnificent,damned cheap too to Thailand.

Contact manufacturer of this machine,ask them other places where they are located, tell the Indians you are a resident of India, they will have a ton of differing prices also medical visa is OK ,bit cheaper

did you have a heart op?if yes rerport which town which hospital do you recommend?

Do not think he did. If you go on Wiki or type in the guys name on the internet ,look for heart surgeons in India by the name of Shetty (maybe Bangalore). He is regarded as one of the best heart surgeons there and in the UK . He did work at Guys hospital in London,quite famous for low cost surgery Was recommended to this surgeon at ex pats club meeting a week or so ago by another member. Not in for heart surgery yet,but monsoon season there at the moment,do not like getting my feet wet

[Issangeorge]

Three years ago I had cataract surgery on one eye @ Kalasin Government Hospital. The cost was ฿18,000 for a single focus lens and one night in a private room. For my money and it is my money ( I'm self insured) there is no way I would travel to Bangkok and pay ฿80,000 plus to have it done in one of the big Banglok private hospitsls. Oh I was able to have it on the day I wanted, no waiting time.

Sent from my i-mobile IQ 6 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[jrtmedic]

This thread is (was) about eye surgery ---so off topic but I cannot resist !

Dr. Devi Shetty is an English trained cardiac surgeon, a philanthropist and the driving force behind the establishment of Narayana Hrudayalaya a multi speciality facility based in Bengaluru, India. The hospital has some 5,000 beds!

Dr Shetty's contribution to the well being of some of the poorest people is to be applauded.

More detail can be found on line.

[harrry]

The prices of the lenses varies greatly and there are different levels of quality and features. These lens implants are intended to hopefully last for life. Interestingly, there is a great doctor in Nepal who has developed a wonderful program of doing free field surgery for poor people, often restoring the sight of people who have been totally blind for five years. He couldn't afford commercial lenses for this program so he led a program to produce his own which are now sold to other poverty programs around the world. The cost of the lenses -- about ONE U.S. dollar. I know, incredible when many of us might spend 1,500 USD for one lens. No, I don't want the dollar lenses but I wonder how the quality compares to an expensive (single focus) lens.

I think you are talking about the work done by the Fred Hollows Foundation started by an Australian who really cared about sight for all.

[orchidlady]

Metta International Eye Center (accredited by JCI) is also one of the places that has the Femtosecond lasers. They are located near Ekkamai. Had never heard of them until I did a search on cataract surgery in Thailand.

[Jingthing]

Metta International Eye Center (accredited by JCI) is also one of the places that has the Femtosecond lasers. They are located near Ekkamai. Had never heard of them until I did a search on cataract surgery in Thailand.

I am not at all convinced that Metta has femtosecond for CATARACT surgery. MANY places have another kind of femtosecond for Lasik, which is not new and not very rare. This new technology is still quite new and the machine is VERY expensive. I do have info that Thailand now has femtosecond laser for cataract machines in at least THREE locations.

One is as predicted -- RUTNIN.

They are not ever adverstising this yet on their technonology. I got the info from an Australian website which helped them with the training.

The second one is a bit north of Bangkok in another province, I forget the name of this place.

The third I don't know.

So this is still very early days for this new technology in Thailand.

[Jingthing]

I am sorry. I was wrong.

Metta International Eye Center at Ekkamai in Bangkok DOES have a femtosecond laser machine.

I think they might even have been using it for awhile.

Their web presence does not appear to be marketing to international people.

Also I was confused before about Metta, it turns out that is the place that I thought was located upcountry from Bangkok ... so ignore my previous comment about a machine in such a place.

http://mettaeyecare.org/index.php/en/2013-04-21-08-07-08

http://mettaeyecare.org/index.php/en/

Has anyone been to Metta for any reason and can they comment on support for English speaking patients?

OK, what I know now:

Rutnin has the machine, not marketing it yet, and is NOT using it yet but WILL use it later

Metta has the machine and is indeed marketing it now so I assume they are already using it.

There is a third machine in Thailand (at least).

Mystery: WHERE is the third machine???!!!

Free prune biscuit to whoever discovers it first!

Edited March 20, 2014 by Jingthing

[Arkady]

I am sorry. I was wrong.

Metta International Eye Center at Ekkamai in Bangkok DOES have a femtosecond laser machine.

I think they might even have been using it for awhile.

Their web presence does not appear to be marketing to international people.

Also I was confused before about Metta, it turns out that is the place that I thought was located upcountry from Bangkok ... so ignore my previous comment about a machine in such a place.

http://mettaeyecare.org/index.php/en/2013-04-21-08-07-08

http://mettaeyecare.org/index.php/en/

Has anyone been to Metta for any reason and can they comment on support for English speaking patients?

OK, what I know now:

Rutnin has the machine, not marketing it yet, and is NOT using it yet but WILL use it later

Metta has the machine and is indeed marketing it now so I assume they are already using it.

There is a third machine in Thailand (at least).

Mystery: WHERE is the third machine???!!!

Free prune biscuit to whoever discovers it first!

Sirirat is apparently now marketing laser cataract surgery for B30,000 an eye.

[keemapoot]

I am sorry. I was wrong.

Metta International Eye Center at Ekkamai in Bangkok DOES have a femtosecond laser machine.

I think they might even have been using it for awhile.

Their web presence does not appear to be marketing to international people.

Also I was confused before about Metta, it turns out that is the place that I thought was located upcountry from Bangkok ... so ignore my previous comment about a machine in such a place.

http://mettaeyecare.org/index.php/en/2013-04-21-08-07-08

http://mettaeyecare.org/index.php/en/

Has anyone been to Metta for any reason and can they comment on support for English speaking patients?

OK, what I know now:

Rutnin has the machine, not marketing it yet, and is NOT using it yet but WILL use it later

Metta has the machine and is indeed marketing it now so I assume they are already using it.

There is a third machine in Thailand (at least).

Mystery: WHERE is the third machine???!!!

Free prune biscuit to whoever discovers it first!

Sirirat is apparently now marketing laser cataract surgery for B30,000 an eye.

That is really cheap, cheaper than a government teaching hospital, which is around 50k. Of course, it depends on the lens you pick, and not sure which lens that 30k deal comes with.

BTW, I am now recovering from cataract surgery in one eye, done about 7 weeks ago. Sight has yet to resume fully, and I opted for a monofocal aspheric IOL as it was the best choice for me having had retina detachment surgery about two years ago, and also having had lasik 10 years ago. As I mentioned previously on this thread, those who've had Lasik have some special considerations, but the good news is that you can go back in for touch up lasik a year later or so and get near perfect vision.

[swerver]

JINGTHING

Interesting reading about your reports covering femtosecond cataract surgery but I notice it all is dater 2012 today we are 2018 and I need my eyes fixed because loosing eye sight.

When living in BKK I always used Rutnin Hospital on Soi Asoke. Years ago for us foreigners we used Dr. Som for Dental - Dr. Rutnin for Eyes - Dr. Elizabeth for General Medical, all off them R.I.P.  I'm octogenarian (89).  Now live 30-km outside Pattaya and use PIH and BHP.  Have consulted BHP the other day regarding cataract surgery and all info lined up with info of MAYO CLINIC but on a few visits to BHP Eye Clinic I never did see any patient going into the Glaucoma / Cataract Room to see the Dr. I wonder how many cataract surgeries BHP is performing???

As for PIH Eye section I do not consider it because there is no comparison with the BHP Eye Clinic. 

Any chance you have more up to date info about BHP Eye Clinic, also does it have the femtosecond first stage equipment? 

 

[TerryLH]

On 18/06/2014 at 3:48 PM, keemapoot said:

That is really cheap, cheaper than a government teaching hospital, which is around 50k.

The 2017 price at a government teaching (KKU) hospital was about 18,000 per eye.

 

[jerry921]

I had surgery in both eyes in the US 2 years ago. I had an option of the surgeon making the incision by hand or using a laser. I don't know if there are multiple types of lasers and whether it was your femtosecond laser or not.

 

They asked $500 more to use the laser (I think that was per eye - not covered by insurance). It was new, and the doc didn't have much experience with it.

 

For the incision, they had me lying down face up and used a cup (cylinder really) that sat in my eye socket. It had rubber around the bottom to make a seal with my face and the top was open so they could add liquid to keep my eye immersed.

 

The surgeon was assisted by a specialist with the laser machine. But for the first eye, they had trouble, because my eye sockets are deep and small, and the cylinder/cup didn't fit. The seal around the bottom kept breaking, leaking all the water out. This was basically the fault of my surgeon for ordering the wrong size cup, but couldn't be corrected without rescheduling the whole surgery. So in the end he did that incision the old fashioned way, by hand.

 

The rest of the operation took place in another room, where they had a machine to do the emulsification and they removed the old lens material and inserted the IOL.

 

The second eye the surgeon knew to order the smaller sized cup for me, and the incision was made with the laser.

 

Based on my personal experience of doing one eye each way, I don't feel the machine is that much better than an experienced surgeon. The incision is not the critical part of the whole thing, the delicate touch is really required for fishing out the emulsified lens pieces and inserting and positioning the new IOL. There wasn't a significant difference in recovery after the operation. It took a little longer for focus to return to normal for the eye that was hand-cut, roughly 2 days vs 1, but the hand cut eye seemed to heal faster than the laser-cut second eye.

 

If I'd realized the surgeon had little (or no!) experience using the laser, given that I knew he had 20 years of successful experience doing surgeries I'd probably have chosen to save the $500 (or $1000) dollars. But it's hard to resist paying as much as you can in any way you can to make an operation on your eyes "safer". If in fact it really is safer.

 

But ye pays yer money and ye takes yer chances.

[kokesaat]

Anyone with recent experience getting multifocal lens as part of cataract surgery in Thailand?  I'm at the early stages of needing cataract surgery and trying to decide whether I want to try multifocal lens as a way to leaving my eyeglasses mostly behind (maybe needed for reading).  Also, recommendations for hospitals in Bangkok would be appreciated.

[Sheryl]

Rutnin hospital. Dr. Roy especially

 

Experience with multifocal lens mixed at best. Personally I would not. 

 

If the issue is avoiding reading glasses, monovision works well for many people.

[Langsuan Man]

Don't forget the savings if having the procedure done in the US since Medicare will pay for part of it, see this and many other articles.  What you save may pay for special lenses 

 

https://www.healthmarkets.com/resources/medicare/does-medicare-cover-cataract-surgery/

[kokesaat]

18 hours ago, Sheryl said:

Rutnin hospital. Dr. Roy especially

 

Experience with multifocal lens mixed at best. Personally I would not. 

 

If the issue is avoiding reading glasses, monovision works well for many people.

Thanks for your input.  Much valued!