Frequently Asked Questions.

It may be used for any corneal ulcer including abrasions to ensure there isn’t infection. A 5-second treatment may be all that is required or can be followed up daily until there is a response to ensure all potential infection is treated. Concurrent antibiotics may be used without reducing the efficacy of the treatment.

The PhotonUVC is recommended for use in cases of conjunctivitis where the cause is bacterial, viral or fungal. Being line-of-sight treatment, it will reduce microbial load in the area exposed. If the cause is allergy or other, it may not have an effect but it won’t cause any harm – it is therefore safe to use in any presentation of conjunctivitis.

With the wide 23mm beam you can treat most veterinary species up to and including horses and cattle

It designed to give at least 100 doses between charges. There is an indicator on the touch screen that shows the current state of charge.

There are no contraindications.

Dosing has been tested with over 3 x the dose for twice a day with no detrimental effect on the patient. ²

This isn’t a problem, the PhotonUVC has a trigger that can be released if the patient moves during the 5 second treatment at which point the treatment pauses, once repositioned continue the treatment until the timer stops.

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Our vet brochure and science section here have a concise summary of efficacy, safety and supporting trials proving reliability and exceptional performance, these address the concerns most vets have when approaching eye cases. Read more

When treating with antibiotics, there is a risk of the medication traveling down the nasolacrimal duct into the nasal cavity, where it may be swallowed, potentially disrupting the normal biome. In contrast, the PhotonUVC Vet delivers a highly targeted UVC treatment, significantly reducing the likelihood of biome disruption. Furthermore, the fornix remains untreated, allowing normal protective commensals to repopulate naturally.

Viruses require the least exposure of all microbes as they have the simplest structures and least repair mechanisms. The device only kills what it can see so although not having an effect on systemic issues, it will reduce viral load on the eye and support rapid resolution of corneal ulcers. Importantly, lessening symptoms reduces stress and pain for the cat which encourages them to continue to eat and helps immune response. Studies looking at this are ongoing.

Controlling any infection is crucial whether in cure rates, speed of cure and the incidence of complications such as scarring or perforation. The treatment adds to the ways in which the infection is being treated and covers if you have resistant bugs (bear in mind 10-15% of cases that are proven on PCR to have an infection grow nothing and mixed infections occur in around 50-60% of cases where again you may not isolate all those bugs or have an antibiotic protocol that can easily cover all of the species involved.) It is particularly helpful in cases where resistant bacteria is undetected whilst waiting  48-72 hrs for C&S results

It is long term accumulative exposure that causes the problem. We are using a very low dose of UVC light (approx equivalent in energy to 2 minutes in sunlight), and on balance if you are concerned about infection then the addition of such a small amount of light is likely to be negligible. We also have a materiovigilance system in place and actively encourage reporting so we will look for any adverse events and ask members of the veterinary and human ophthalmology community to help us in the event we detect any patterns in suspect adverse events.

We have vet ophthalmology specialists looking at bacterial load pre and post treatment with the PhotonUVC and they will be making their data public in the next few weeks/month. These studies show the PhotonUVC is effective at reducing infection load.

The PhotonUVC Vet only treats what it can be pointed at and can penetrate. Thus it will not have an effect on infection within the fornices. However, as the cornea may harbour a significant amount of infectious load there are some experts who think it will help in infected conjunctivitis cases. There are studies currently underway looking at possible efficacy in primary bacterial conjunctivitis.

Our tech, safety and efficacy makes the difference. The PhotonUVC is a medical grade device built to human regulations in a market that doesn’t require regulations. This means:

1 – It reliably produces 264nm wavelength light – which is unique and patented. The maximum bug killing occurs at this wavelength.

2 – The power output is precisely calibrated and monitored to ensure reproducible results in every case (3.5mJcm2) when the device is at approx the right distance from the eye.

3 – Advanced optics and alignment ensures treatment is delivered evenly across the target area.

So what does the device does to check this:

1 – wavelength is fixed for a given led and will stay the same for life – therefore checked once at the end of production is fine

2 – power output – this is calibrated precisely at the end of production. Once set the device checks (Using an inbuilt UV sensor, advanced hardware and our proprietary software) that the precise dose has been administered at each and every treatment.  If it doesn’t then the device will show an error and lock.

3 – Consistency of the beam is quality checked with each device undergoing testing using an advanced beam profilometer to ensure the device will perform accurately.  Again this will not deviate unless the device is severely physically damaged – broken lens, housing badly out of line, something which would be very obvious.

Contrast with the cheap UV torches where none of the above is consistent AND you won’t know if they have stopped producing light as UV isn’t seen by human eyes.