Sight Sciences Introduces SION—The First Bladeless Device Used in Goniotomy
Sight Sciences announced the launch of SION, a surgical instrument the company is describing as the first bladeless device used for goniotomy. The SION is manually operated and used in ophthalmic surgical procedures to excise trabecular meshwork. SION's bladeless design, which is micro-engineered and manufactured using specialized lasers, excises tissue without cutting. Instead, SION grasps and removes diseased tissue as the surgeon sweeps the instrument around Schlemm's canal with a single smooth motion.
"Goniotomy is an essential procedure in my glaucoma practice. As one of the new SION users, I was able to excise and remove several clock hours of diseased trabecular meshwork tissue," Amir Cohen, MD, MBA, Founder of The Glaucoma Care Center of New Jersey, said in a company news release.
"I was surprised and impressed at how smooth SION made the goniotomy procedure," said Arkadiy Yadgarov, MD of Omni Eye Services of Atlanta. "The bladeless design helped the SION tip navigate along Schlemm's canal without getting stuck into the scleral back wall."
The bladeless technology of SION was developed with ophthalmic surgeons to improve safety and ease-of-use by eliminating the need to navigate sharp instrumentation within the eye's anterior chamber and iridocorneal angle anatomy. The design features are intended to drive up the efficiency and completion of the excisional tissue removal procedure.
"The SION Surgical Instrument is an exciting addition to our robust product portfolio and shows our continued dedication to successfully developing and commercializing minimally invasive, interventional approaches to prevalent eye diseases," Paul Badawi, Co-Founder and CEO of Sight Sciences, said in a company news release. "While our flagship OMNI Surgical System has the broadest and most potent MIGS mechanism of action (trabecular meshwork, Schlemm's canal, and collector channels) and therefore the largest addressable market, the SION Surgical Instrument enables us to serve the growing goniotomy market subsegment with our existing commercial infrastructure and another best-in-class solution."