Steady State Temperature Gradients in a Non-Blinking Human Eye Prepared for Surgery

LASER surgery on the human eye is intended to reduce a person’s dependency on glasses or contact lenses. Any type of Laser surgery has heat effects on the eye. In laser surgery specific parts of the eye are exposed to concentrated high heat doses, too high heat at a certain spot results in permanent medical damage to the specific exposed eye cells. Precise temperature monitoring of the live interior of the human eye is not possible with the current technology. Published modeling assumes that the human eyeball is at a constant temperature, mostly at 37 °C. Understanding the exact temperature gradients in the prepared open human eyeball in room temperature before surgery is a first step in better understanding the heat effects of either laser surgery on specific treated spots of the cornea, or the effects of insertion of synthetic lenses in the human eye, or treating the retina with laser. In this article the anatomy of the human eyeball, dimensions, and properties are considered in constructing a finite element steady state thermal model of the normal open human eye for an adult, in preparation for surgery under normal room conditions. Also, room boundary conditions are used. Based on the model, the temperature gradients in the open eye are reported.