CAPE DOCTOR EARNS PATENT ON CATARACT SURGERY DEVICE

As cataract surgery has become increasingly precise, Dr. Charles Cozean Jr., a Cape Girardeau eye surgeon, began looking for a way to make surgical tools equally precise.

Cozean has received a patent on a new surgical device that he says also makes cataract repair safer. The device is called a hydraulic capsulorhexitome. Basically it replaces a technique that required freehand tearing of a portion of the eye with controlled removal of the tissue using water pressure.

This is Cozean's third patent. He received a patent for a similar surgical device that used ultrasound instead of hydraulic pressure. He also received a patent for an intraoccular lens.

"We've been testing devices for occular companies since 1980, and we've been doing research and development for about 20 years now," Cozean said. "That's really the fun of it."

A cateract occurs when the natural lens of the eye becomes clouded or milky because of age, disease or a birth defect.

In a cateract surgery, Surgeons remove the natural lens and replace it with a man-made lens restoring vision.

The lens is inside a membrane called a capsule. A surgeon must make a tiny "manhole" in this membrane to remove the damaged lens. The replacement lens is inserted through the same tiny hole.

"The problem has been making the `manhole' the perfect size and shape," Cozean said. "You must match the size of the incision to the size of the implant."

The technique has been to make the initial incision with a surgical instrument and then to make a freehand tear of the membrane to create the "manhole."

Cozean thought a more precise technique was needed to eliminate the freehand portion of the surgery. First he developed one that used ultrasound waves to make a precise hole. However, Cozean said, the initial incision was larger than he liked in order to get the device into the eye.

He started looking for another way to power the device and thought about hydrolic pressure.

Typically, hydrolic water pressure is used for large purposes like cleaning buildings or excavating dirt and boulders.

Cozean consulted his son, Charles Cozean III, an aeronautical engineer with NASA, who conducted a feasibility study on the use of hydrolic pressure for the delicate eye surgery.

"He said he thought it would work," Cozean said.

They built a prototype and it did work, he said.

Both Cozeans are named on the patent.

With the patent in hand, Cozean is working with Alcon, an occular company, to see about licensing the device.