Profile on Inventors

 

The LASERPHACO Probe

Dr. Patricia Bath is no miracle worker, though her skilled hands continue to shatter darkness for the blind. For Bath, 53, an internationally acclaimed ophthalmologist and surgeon, the greatest experience is saving or restoring the sight of people afflicted by eye diseases like glaucoma or cataracts. "The ability to restore vision is the ultimate reward," said Bath. "It is a really great joy to remove eye patches the day after surgery and the patient can see again." Dr. Bath is credited with a number of achievements during her almost 30 year career in medicine. After she earned a patent for a medical invention, she joined the surgery staff at UCLA Medical Center and faculty. She also co-founded the ophthalmology training program at Martin Luther King, Jr - Charles R. Drew Medical Center, and much more.
Dr. Bath filed her patent for the LASERPHACO probe in 1986. In 1988, she received the patents for her Laser Cataract Surgery Device, and in 1992, she received her patens from Japan and Canada. Three years later, in 1995, patents were awarded to her from various countries in Europe. The LASERPHACO probe is a surgical instrument designed for use in human cataract surgery. The instrument combines an optical fiber conducting laser radiation with an irrigation line and an aspiration line.
Her instrument was the first instrument designed for removing the cataractous lens. Prior to 1986, lasers were used for treating "secondary cataractous membranes", diabetic retinal diseases, glaucoma, etc. However, it was not possible to use the laser for primary, i.e. initial cataract surgery until her invention of the LASERPHACO probe.
The moment of discovery came in l986 in Berlin, the only place she could avail herself of the laser equipment needed to power the probe. She was awarded four patents for the invention in 1988. A mechanical drill-like tool is commonly used to grind away the cataract, a cloudiness of the lens of the eye that can be surgically corrected. she explained. But her probe was a more accurate tool. she said.
Designed for delicate eye surgery, the probe is powered by laser energy that virtually vaporizes and fragments the cataract in minutes. The $200,000 probe is undergoing clinical trials and testing by the Food and Drug Administration, which may not be completed for two years.
Dr. Bath, who was born in Harlem New York, attributed her self-determination and love for learning to her parents. Dr. Bath's education is extensive. She is a 1964 graduate of Hunter College in New York and a 1968 graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C. From 1968 through 1974, Bath alternately took classes at Columbia University and New York University, and did an internship at Harlem Hospital. In 1993, Bath retired from the UCLA Medical Center and was the first woman elected to the Center's honorary medical staff. Since then, she has been an advocate of telemedicine, the use of electronic communication to provide medical services to remote areas where health care is otherwise very limited. She has held positions in telemedicine at Howard University Hospital and currently at St. George's University in Grenada and served as a consultant to an Internet pharmacy firm.