-June 21st, 2004 - Gamagori, JAPAN-

NIDEK Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in excimer laser technology and refractive surgery solutions, held its 9th NIDEK International Refractive Surgery Symposium on June 18th & 19th, 2004 in Barcelona, Spain. Some 400 plus delegates from over 40 counties gathered in Barcelona, to review and share the latest advancements in surgical and diagnostic clinical applications using NIDEK’s refractive surgery platform – NAVEX and the NIDEK OPD-Scan.

The NIDEK International Refractive Surgery Symposium is an event that NIDEK has hosted and sponsored over the last 10 years for surgeons and clinicians from around the world. This year’s symposium included topics and sessions on Wavefront Analysis and Diagnostics, Presbyopia Treatments, NIDEK’s Final Fit Software, NIDEK’s proprietary softwares – OATz (Optimized Aspheric Treatment Zone), CATz (Customized Aspheric Treatment Zone), and OPDCAT (Optimized Path Difference Customized Aspheric Treatment) for the treatments of myopia and hyperopia and special didactic courses and workshops on various advanced refractive surgery topics.

George Waring, III, MD served as the program chairman of the two-day event. “I know of no other ophthalmic company that supports such a unique educational program for its users and promotes and fosters an environment of sharing and collaboration on a global basis. New to this year’s meeting was an emphasis on the last great refractive surgical problem: the treatment of presbyopia, with reports on creating multifocal corneas for distance and near vision using NIDEK’s refractive surgery platform. One triumph that was celebrated at this year’s meeting was the reduction of induced optical aberrations after excimer laser corneal surgery with NIDEK’s new and proprietary software”, commented Dr. Waring.

“Like in years passed, NIDEK has sponsored and supported the Journal of Refractive Surgery (JRS) supplement from this symposium. Proceedings will be printed in the October 2004 issue of JRS. This year we are excited that M. Alaa El-Danasoury, MD, FRCS from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia will be the guest editor for this supplement issue. The event was a great success with distinguished program faculty from some ten counties and participants from around Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Americas,” reported Mr. Kuntal Joshi, Director of Global Marketing at NIDEK. “NIDEK continues to provide an excellent educational and networking forum for its product users and this year hundreds of surgeons and clinicians from around the world gathered to share their advancements and experiences with one another”, added Mr. Joshi.

“This year we see that harmonizing a solid diagnostic instrument base with an advanced surgical platform holds much promise to the future advancements and greater clinical applications, along with outstanding clinical outcomes and results”, commented Mr. Hideo Ozawa, Founder & President of NIDEK. “The technological improvements continue year after year and NIDEK continued to advance refractive surgery in a strong and positive way. This year we heard about neural-networking algorithms for the analysis of corneal topography in the NIDEK OPD-Scan and Magellan Mapper. Surgeons and physicians have achieved excellent results using NIDEK’s various software platforms. NIDEK looks forward to a strong focus on developing new surgical and diagnostic products, in its quest to advance the field of excimer laser technology and refractive surgery. We look forward to hosting another regional event in April 2005 in Dubai, UAE, as we continue our long-standing commitment to advancing the field of Refractive Surgery”.

Contact:
Ms. Hiromi Kitagawa
Public Relations, Planning Dept.
Phone: +81-533-67-6753
Fax: +81-533-67-6610
Email: info@nidek.co.jp