Now with laser precision

SINGAPORE -  Cornea transplants may soon be carried out using lasers instead of by hand - just like how the technology is used in Lasik surgery to correct short sightedness.

Clinical trials are underway and the Singapore National Eye Centre. SNEC hopes to offer it within a year. SNEC director Donald Tan said: "Being able to use the laser to do most of the surgery means far greater precision and that will immediately translate into much better vision."

It is likely that more people will need a cornea transplant due to disease and degeneration as Singapore's population ages. So SNEC doctors also want to get people to stop wearing glasses.

That includes those with presbyopia a condition which affects older people who have problems reading fine print. This can now be cured with an implant 4mm (3.8mm) wide and one twentieth the thickness of human hair that sharpens vision through a pinhole effect. It is inserted in the outer layer of one eye so the other eye would still be able to see objects far away.

Singapore is the first to perform this procedure which can also cure myopia astigmatism and presbyopia in one procedure.