Patent ID: 8403921

Claim:
A system for cataract surgery on an eye of a patient, comprising: a laser assembly for generating a pulsed laser treatment beam that creates dielectric breakdown in a focal zone of the treatment beam within tissues of the patient's eye so as to effect a cataract surgery procedure; an optical coherence tomography (OCT) 3-Dimensional imaging system configured for imaging tissue of a cataractous crystalline lens of the patient; an optical scanning system configured for positioning the focal zone of the treatment beam to targeted locations of the crystalline lens; and a computer control system operatively coupled to the laser assembly, the imaging system, and the optical scanning system, and programmed to automatically: a) acquire image data from locations distributed throughout a volume of the cataractous crystalline lens using the imaging system; b) construct one or more images of the patient's eye tissues from the image data, comprising an image of at least a portion of the crystalline lens; c) construct an anterior capsulotomy cutting region based on the image data, the capsulotomy cutting region comprising an anterior cutting boundary axially spaced from a posterior cutting boundary so as to define an axially-elongated cutting zone transecting the anterior capsule; and d) operate the optical scanning system and laser assembly to direct a treatment beam in a pattern based on the anterior capsulotomy cutting region so as to create an anterior capsulotomy in the crystalline lens.