Chapter 24: ASSORT Surgical Management Software for Ophthalmologists

ASSORT Surgical Management Software, Ophthalmology software analyzing Cataract and Refractive Laser Surgery using The Alpins Method of Astigmatism analysis In most instances surgeons don’t have the time to create spreadsheets to analyse the data so what’s available to determine their own nomograms and improve on visual results? So what I am going to talk about is the Assort Surgical Management Systems and there is a range of software available that we have for ophthalmology and specifically for cataract and refractive. So we start off with the flagship software, which is the Assort software, and this looks at incorporating the Alpins Method with regards to analysing astigmatism for refractive and corneal procedures, including planning and analysing not just refractive Excimer laser procedures using vector planning, but also looking at Toric IOL’s and planning those and Femto LRI’s as well as mechanical LRI’s. The analyses can be done for single case or for hundreds, or even thousands and do a group analysis which shows the polar diagrams, together with summated vector means as well. There are both numerical and graphical reports available with the Assort software and they can be exported for further statistical analysis. The other software that we have available is iAssort and iAssort specifically interfaces with topographers or tomographers. So some of the key parameters with the iAssort Software is that it analyses one by one case. So unlike the Assort flagship it is not a group analysis it is a one by one case and you get parameters such as the ocular residual astigmatism being calculated for each case, the topographic disparity level we’ve also mentioned in these presentations together with the CorT or corneal topographic astigmatism and the corneal topographic astigmatism can be calculated for anterior cornea as well as total cornea and be used for the Toric IOL calculations, as again has been discussed. The Alpins’ Method of Analysis is also calculated in each of these cases, together with the basic graphics of the analysis so that is with iAssort and topographers and tomographers. The third software that we have is the VectraK software which is a vector calculator. Now the VectraK does not have any graphics involved at all but basically asked the user four questions which relate to the pre-operative astigmatism, whether it’s corneal refractive, the post-operative astigmatism, again corneal refractive, the amount of astigmatism you are trying to treat and the axis of the treatment and it gives you, again the Alpins’ Method, describing the index of success, the correction index, flattening and torque. It can do a group analyses from 100 up to 1000 cases with the VectraK software and can do import and export. So if you have data already on the spreadsheet then the VectraK Software will allow you to import that data from the spreadsheet and export, again for further analyses. Using the software, you can look at how your results have performed. In other words, whether you have over corrected the astigmatism or under corrected the astigmatism using the Alpins’ parameters and can incorporate these in future processes or future procedures with nomogram adjustments. The other calculators that we have available are freely available on the web site, on the Assort.com website, and these include the Assort Toric IOL calculator which shows us not only how to plan for Toric IOL and the Toric IOL that is available worldwide. We have all the key manufacturers of Toric IOL’s come up on the system. We also have refractive surprises. So when you have a refractive surprise with a Toric IOL, what do you do? Can you actually rotate the Toric IOL? Do you need to replace it? Do you need to do Lasik surgery on top? These can be investigated again using the Alpins’ Method. All these calculators on the website are actually free. How can someone purchase the Assort, iAssort, the VectraK software? They can be purchased from the website again. So the other calculators that are freely available is the Femto LRI calculator which allows you to plan and analyse your Femto LRI incisions, as well as a basic vector calculator where you can do the addition or subtraction of two vectors, or astigmatisms. The final one that we have is a Coupling calculator which looks at the effects of coupling or incisions and ablations. I didn’t mention there the Vector Planning calculator, which again is freely available, to look at treating somewhere between refractive and corneal parameters and reducing the amount of corneal astigmatism remaining post-operatively.