Taiwan became the gathering point for the global ophthalmology community this month when the 2026 joint annual meeting of the International Society of Refractive Surgery (ISRS) and the Taiwan Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (TSCRS)opened July 17 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, drawing 47 eye specialists from 15 countries for three days of clinical exchange on surgical robotics, AI-driven diagnostics, and vision care for aging populations.
The summit — the first time ISRS and TSCRS have co-hosted a joint annual meeting — drew an opening-ceremony address from Taiwan's Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare Lin Ching-yi(林靜儀), a show of government-level recognition for the island's growing standing in ophthalmic research and clinical innovation. Among the international speakers were former presidents of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS), the German Society for Cataract and Refractive Surgery (DGII), and the All India Ophthalmological Society (AIOS), alongside the executive director of the Singapore Eye Research Institute.
The session drawing the most attention featured California-based ophthalmologist Uday Devgan, who in 2025 completed what is recognized as the world's first robot-assisted cataract surgery and has since accumulated ten documented cases. His presentation marked the technology's debut before a Taiwan audience, and was widely seen as a signal that ophthalmology is entering a new phase of automation-assisted precision medicine.
When Microsurgery Meets Its Human Limits
Sun Chi-chin (孫啟欽), former TSCRS president and vice superintendent of Keelung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, said the appeal of robotics in cataract surgery comes down to the unforgiving geometry of the human eye. The operative field inside the eye is extremely confined, and a deviation of just tens of micrometers can alter a surgical outcome. Even experienced surgeons, he noted, are not immune to fatigue, extended working hours, or subtle hand tremor — factors that would be imperceptible in most fields of medicine but are significant at this scale.
"The robot's advantage," Sun said, "is that it can maintain a more consistent operating state, helping to reduce human-induced variability and improve procedural uniformity."
Devgan's ten cases have been concentrated in patients with relatively uncomplicated cataract presentations — a deliberate approach while the technology matures. Sun said that if image recognition, intraoperative sensing, and fine-motor precision continue to improve, robotic applications could eventually extend to retinal procedures that demand even greater control than cataract removal currently requires.
Real-Time AI Alerts Reinforce the Surgeon's Judgment
Sun was careful to frame robotic-assisted surgery as an augmentation of physician capability rather than a step toward automation. The system's clinical value, he argued, lies not only in physical instrument stability but also in its integration with AI and intraoperative navigation, which enables real-time mapping of ocular tissue positions, instrument location, and safe operating margins.
In phacoemulsification — the ultrasound-based technique used in most modern cataract procedures — the AI component can alert the surgical team when instruments approach the posterior capsule or other delicate internal structures, then halt or adjust the instrument's trajectory according to preset safety parameters. The result, Sun said, is an active safety layer rather than a replacement for clinical judgment.
He stressed that the robot does not operate autonomously and is not intended to replace the surgeon. "The surgeon remains in full control throughout the procedure," he said, adding that if the patient moves, if intraocular conditions shift, or if an unexpected event arises, the physician can intervene at any moment.
Taiwan's Awake Patients Require Locally Adapted Protocols
One of the more practically significant points Sun raised concerns how cataract surgery is administered in Taiwan compared with some overseas settings. In parts of the United States, certain procedures may involve sedation anesthesia; in Taiwan, the standard approach relies on local topical anesthesia, meaning patients are typically fully awake on the table. Cataract patients are predominantly elderly, and an anxious or uncomfortable patient may shift without warning — a dynamic that makes the robot's fast-response sensing capability particularly relevant as a safety backstop in the local clinical context.
That difference also means international protocols cannot be transplanted wholesale into Taiwan's hospitals. Devgan's ten-case dataset reflects a specific clinical environment, and Sun said Taiwan will need to build its own body of case records and outcomes data before the technology can be meaningfully adapted to local practice. Complex presentations — patients with iris abnormalities, corneal opacity, or other complicating intraocular conditions — will still depend on a surgeon's real-time judgment rather than pre-programmed robotic responses.
AI to Reshape Eye Care From Exam Room to Operating Table
Sun's broader vision for artificial intelligence in ophthalmology extends well past the surgical suite. He envisions AI playing an active role throughout the complete arc of patient care — from scheduling and initial examination through surgical planning, intraoperative guidance, and post-surgical follow-up.
Practically, this could mean AI systems that sequence diagnostic tests, flag missing examinations, and consolidate a patient's age, visual acuity measurements, retinal imaging, medical history, and overall health profile to help physicians detect early-stage glaucoma or retinal disease before those conditions worsen. The same integrated data would inform decisions about which surgical approach and which intraocular lens best suits the individual patient's vision needs.
"The goal of intelligent ophthalmology," Sun said, "is not to have machines replace physicians, but to use technology to help physicians command more complete information, reduce variability in practice, and make medical decisions that are better suited to each patient."
For Taiwan's rapidly aging population, Sun concluded, the real value of emerging robotics and AI lies not in the novelty of the hardware itself, but in what it enables: more thorough examinations, more consistent surgical execution, and a trajectory toward care that is safer, more precise, and meaningfully personalized.
