Cataract hospitals in Israel

A cataract is the most common cause of blindness in the world. Fortunately, this type of blindness is completely reversible. The timely lens replacement surgery can restore vision and avoid complications such as glaucoma.

The patients no longer need to wait for cataracts to "mature" as they did several decades ago. Today it is possible to quickly cure even the initial forms of this disease and get one hundred percent recovery of vision.

In Israel, the surgical procedure to remove cataract is completely painless and takes few minutes. The risk of complications is close to zero. Israeli specialists have already performed tens of thousands of such operations. You can go to this country to cure cataracts and get the vision of the quality that you did not have even in your youth.

What is a cataract?

A cataract is a pathological clouding of the lens. There are many forms of this disease. The most common one is age-related cataract. With age, the protein that is part of the lens is denatured, so a person sees worse and worse, and then completely loses his vision.

Less commonly, the disease develops due to other causes:

• Chemical poisoning
• Diabetes mellitus
• Radiation exposure
• Eye injury
• Other eye diseases due to which the secondary cataract develops

The symptoms depend on the type of cataract.

Cortical cataract. The patient experiences eye floaters, double vision, spots. Gradually, the image that a person perceives with his eyes becomes cloudy. Halos appear around glowing objects. Then the objects become completely indistinguishable. The color perception and the ability to see light sources remain the longest.

Nuclear cataract. It manifests itself as very severe myopia. The patient can only see objects located in the immediate vicinity of the face.

Subcapsular cataract. It is characterized by a sharp decrease in visual acuity and the rapid development of blindness.

How is cataract diagnosed in Israel?

It is important for a doctor to identify the cause of vision loss, to distinguish cataracts from other diseases, to identify concomitant pathologies, and to determine the optimal treatment method.

The diagnostics involves the use of the following techniques:

• Biomicroscopy – it allows to see the foci of the clouding of the lens and understand where they are located
• Tonometry – intraocular pressure measurement is required to exclude glaucoma, which often complicates the course of cataract
• Keratometry – corneal curvature measurement
• Perimetry – visual field assessment
• Ophthalmoscopy – examination of the fundus

According to the indications, electrophysiological examination of the optic nerve, ultrasound scanning of the eyeball, and endothelial microscopy can be performed.

What is the process of cataract treatment in Israel?

In the vast majority of cases, cataract is treated with the use of a phacoemulsification procedure. Its essence is as follows:

1. A doctor destroys the patient's own lens
2. The lens is emulsified and sucked out of the eye
3. An artificial lens (intraocular lens) is placed in its place, which is introduced into the eye in a folded state and is straightened inside it

To destroy the patient's own lens, the doctors mostly use an ultrasound device or a laser. In Israel, a wide variety of intraocular lenses are used, which are selected individually, depending on the patient's vision acuity and his expectations for the results of the surgery.

After cataract treatment, a person will fully regain vision, if there are no other reasons for its loss, except for the clouding of the lens. Moreover, the person will see better than before the surgery. This is due to the fact that the artificial lens corrects refractive errors. If the person had myopia, astigmatism or hyperopia before cataract treatment, now it will disappear: the patient will see well at any distance.

What hospitals can offer treatment?

Some of the best hospitals for cataract treatment in Israel are as follows. 

Hadassah Medical Center. The hospital performs minimally invasive surgical procedures for cataract removal, namely ultrasound or laser phacoemulsification, extra- or intracapsular lens extraction. To select the optimal treatment method, the doctors perform optical coherence tomography, laser or ultrasound eye scanning, biomicroscopy. The hospital performs cataract extraction using a cryoextractor (removal of the lens after its freezing).

The Hadassah Center also offers cataract surgery in children. The surgical interventions are performed even in newborns, in the first days of their life. Such surgery is performed under general anesthesia. Then the child uses glasses or lenses, or an artificial lens is implanted. However, as the patient grows up, it has to be changed to another one.

Sourasky Medical Center. It is one of the leading clinics in Israel. The doctors of the Department of Ophthalmology perform more than 1.5 thousand eye surgical procedures every year. The most common method of cataract treatment in this hospital is phacoemulsification.

Rabin Medical Center. The cataract surgery in Israel is performed at the Beilinson Hospital. The doctors perform lens replacements using microsurgical instruments and a laser. This technique allows removing the lens while preserving the capsule. If the capsule also needs to be removed (for example, in the case of secondary cataract), cryoextraction is used.

Rambam Health Care Campus. It is one of the largest centers in Israel. The Rambam Hospital uses either ultrasound or laser technology to destroy the lens. An artificial intraocular lens is inserted through a small incision – it is less than 2 mm, therefore it is sealed on its own and does not require any stitches. After removing the lens, the doctors polish the back wall of the capsule to avoid the development of secondary cataracts. In the case of secondary cataracts, it is not the lens that becomes cloudy, but the capsule, inside which the lens is located.

The Rambam Hospital demonstrates good results in the treatment of secondary cataracts. It can develop in some patients 1-2 years after the primary cataract surgery. The pathological changes can be eliminated with the laser.

Why is it better to undergo treatment in Israel?

Many patients go to Israel to undergo cataract surgery. Here they can count on the highest level of ophthalmic care. The cataracts in Israeli hospitals are removed quickly, safely, painlessly, with a short recovery period for the patient. The vision is restored immediately after surgery and gradually improves over the next few weeks. Here are the main benefits of cataract removal in Israel:

• In the leading hospitals, surgery can only be performed by specialists who have undergone special training, internship and have performed a large number of procedures to replace the lens of the eye
• State-of-the-art diagnostic equipment allows selecting the optimal method of cataract treatment for each patient
• The use of new lasers allows destroying the clouded lens without damaging the adjacent tissues
• Polishing the capsule avoids the development of secondary cataracts, which can sometimes lead to visual impairment several years after surgery
• The possibility of laser treatment of secondary cataracts
• Minimally invasive technique – the doctors make an incision just over one and a half millimeters, which does not require stitches
• Thanks to the use of the laser and self-sealing of the incision, the risk of infectious complications is practically zero
• After cataract treatment, the person gets one hundred percent vision, even if he previously had refractive errors (hyperopia, myopia, astigmatism)
• Vision is restored in the first days after the surgery, while the results achieved during the treatment remain forever (provided that there are no other eye diseases)
• The doctors in Israel can perform surgery to simultaneously eliminate two or more diseases, such as cataract and glaucoma

Foreign patients visit hospitals in Israel primarily because of the high level of medicine. Another reason is affordable prices. The cost of medical services in Israel is lower than in Europe and in the United States.

Where to seek help from?

To undergo cataract treatment in Israel, please, use the Booking Health service. On our portal you can get information about hospitals, medical programs, doctors, and prices for cataract treatment. You can compare the cost of medical services in different hospitals and book the program that suits you at a favorable price. The Booking Health specialists will take care of the organization of your trip to Israel. We offer the following services and benefits:

• Selection of the eye clinic, which specializes in cataract treatment, performs a large number of successful operations with minimal risk of complications
• Reduced waiting time for treatment
• Reduced cost of treatment – the price is reduced due to excluding additional coefficients for foreign patients
• Direct communication with the doctor
• Latest update information on the cost of the procedures performed and the return of unspent funds after the completion of the medical progra
• Preparation of a treatment program in Israel without the need to repeat previously performed diagnostic tests
• Buying and forwarding medicines
• Communication with the hospital after the completion of the medical program
• Organization of additional diagnostics, treatment or rehabilitation in Israel

The Booking Health specialists provide high-quality services. We will book a hotel and airline tickets for you, meet you at the airport and take you to the hospital by car.