Our Services
The Specialist Eye Centre provides comprehensive eye care covering all aspects of medical and surgical eye conditions. All the consultants are fully qualified to provide the routine eye treatments such as cataract surgery, in addition to the many specialist ophthalmic services listed below.
General eye consultation
This best approach to the management of eye conditions is to first seek a general eye consultation with any one of our consultants. Each consultant is fully trained to diagnose and treat all general ophthalmic conditions. Any patient who may benefit from specialist management will be automatically referred to the most appropriate team member. This saves a lot of vital time and effort, for both the patient and the referring health care professional. Furthermore, patients referred to any consultant will become an SEC patient and will benefit from consultant-led management at all times. This level of cover provides the referring healthcare professional with peace of mind in knowing that their patient will receive the best available care at all times.
Cataract
Cataract surgery is without doubt the most common eye operation. It is highly successful and quickly restores vision. SEC consultants use the latest “key-hole” phacoemulsification technique and insert foldable lenses into the eye. The power of the lens required is accurately calculated using the latest ultrasonic machine to achieve the desired refraction (spectacle prescription). The operation is done under a painless local anaesthetic with the advantage of rapid recovery and patients returning home the same day after surgery. However, the operation can also be done under a general anaesthesia if the patient wishes.
In the very rare instances of complications arising from cataract surgery, these can be treated “in-house” by the vitreoretinal surgeons as part of the service.
Medical retina
The two vitreoretinal surgeons also have vast experience in the management of medical retinal conditions, ranging from common conditions such as diabetic retinopathy and aged-related macular degeneration, to the rarer conditions e.g. retinitis pigmentosa. SEC offers established treatments e.g. conventional laser therapy for diabetic retinopathy and aged-related macular degeneration as well as newer treatments such as transpupillary thermal therapy (TTT) for age-related macular degeneration.
The treatments are evidence-based and consistent with international standards. In addition, our results are constantly audited to ensure we maintain the highest success rates.
Photodynamic Therapy
Certain types of macular degeneration (whether age or myopia related) are not amenable to conventional laser treatment due to its central position on the macula. Using conventional laser would destroy the macular as well as the lesion. A new treatment called photodynamic therapy (PDT), previously used for cancer therapy is now available to treat this type of lesion without damaging the macula. It involves an intravenous injection of a drug called verteporfin (Visudyne ®), which is taken up by the lesion and only slightly by normal tissue. A low energy laser is then applied which is concentrated on the lesion which has taken up the dye. The treatment is conducted in the clinic and takes about half an hour. Specialist Eye Centre has 2 retinal specialists who are trained to provide this treatment.
Surgical retina
The introduction of microsurgical techniques in vitreoretinal surgery was the key contributor to the significant advances in the treatment of retinal diseases. Delicate surgery on the retina can now be performed to cure diseases of the retina thought incurable only a few years ago; the success rate of retinal detachment surgery is now over 90%. The latest techniques can be employed to treat macular diseases (e.g. macular degeneration), severe infection of the eye (enophthalmitis), epiretinal membranes, macular oedema (e.g. secondary to diabetic retinopathy), macular hole and proliferative diabetic vitreoretinopathy. SEC has specialists experienced in the management of surgical retinal conditions, including those previously only conducted in major centres such as Moorfields Eye Hospital, London.
Glaucoma
The treatment of this devastating disease has improved in recent years. Newer and more powerful drugs are now available to reduce intraocular pressure such that the requirement for glaucoma surgery is becoming less and less. The latest laser treatment (cyclodiode therapy) is also available to reduce the need for surgery. The Specialist Eye Centre has access to the latest technology including computerised visual field testing and periodic digital optic disc photography to provide a full range these medical, laser and surgical treatments. A glaucoma patient needs to be monitored for disease progression and treatment effectiveness throughout their lifetime.
Cornea
Mr Teimory has had training in cornea surgery and eye banking as registrar and senior registrar. He was fortunate enough to have worked with Mr Chad Rostron a leading innovator of corneal surgery in UK. The demand for corneal surgery particularly corneal grafts has diminished in recent years due to better microsurgical instrumentaion and techniques that leaves the cornea unharmed from surgical trauma. In fact the main indication of transplantation in UK at one time was corneal decompemsation from cataract surgery which is now uncommon with small incision catarac surgery. Zovirax has also had a major impact by minimising the corneal complications of herpatic disease. SEC offers a corneal opinion including medical and surgical management.
Refractive surgery
Advances in technology have offered new opportunities and challenges in many areas of medicine; one such example is refractive surgery.
Refractive surgery is becoming a rapidly evolving science as the demand for better vision without aids such as cumbersome glasses or troublesome contact lenses increases. The number of possible procedures has multiplied
over the years; beginning with the making of many cuts on the surface of the cornea using a blade - Radial Keratotomy, to the most recent laser techniques. The indications for these techniques have also expanded from the correction of myopia (short sightedness) to include different types of
refractive errors such as hypermetropia (long sightedness) and astigmatism.
Many types of laser treatments exist. The principle is the use of a laser beam to change the shape, and therefore the refractive power of the cornea, thereby negating the need for glasses or contact lenses. Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK), the first of these, has now been superseded by Laser In Situ Keratomiliusis (LASIK).
Recently, yet another form of refractive surgery has been introduced called Intacs. This innovative technique involves changing the shape of the cornea using implants to correct for mild to moderate myopia. The benefit of this new technique is that it is totally reversible.
SEC can offer all the available techniques to date and can therefore provide unbiased advice and choice on the best type of treatment tailored for each individual patient.
Squint
Understanding and management of strabismus is still an enigma to many ophthalmologist. Mr Teimory was fortunate to have been trained in this area for sixteen months by Mr Peter Fells and John Lee at Moorfields. They are both world authorities in this field.
The most important development in this area is the use of adjustable sutures to “fine tune “ the angle of deviation postoperatively. This allows more predictable surgical outcome in adults and patients as young as twelve. SEC offers the most comprehensive strabismus diagnosis and treatment set up including the use of Botulinum toxin for management of certain type of strabismus.
Neuro-ophthalmology
Neuro-ophthalmology is the subspecialty of ophthalmology that studies the connections of the eye with the brain. Over half of the human brain substance and higher cortical connections are concerned with vision and eye movement co-ordination. Many local and systemic conditions affect these pathways and comprehensive neuro-ophthalmological can be invaluable in correct diagnosis and management of these conditions.
There are only a handful of fellowship trained neuro-ophthalmologists in the UK. Joel Glaser, Lawton Smith and Norman Schatz at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida trained Mr Teimory in this subspecialty.
SEC collaborates closely with the local consultant neurologists and neurosurgeons and has access to the latest MRI imaging techniques at Worthing and King Edward VII hospitals.