Re:And then the olympics will die. (Score 1)

er... depends on what you refer to. cataract is an affliction of the lens. with increasing age the lens tends to get more opaque, though electromagnetic irradiation, steroids or diabetes (to mention a few) may speed up the process. standard procedure is to liquefy the opaque lens with an ultrasound probe, suck it up and replace it with an artifical lens, made of acrylic glass (or silicone). now glaucoma surgery is something entirely different; there are several procedures, some involving lasers. the problem with glaucoma is elevated intraocular pressure, or rather intraocular pressure that has reached the point where it is too high for the individual optic nerve to be supplied with enough blood (it's a matter of balance). thus, fibers of the optic nerve get "malnourished" and eventually die off. this results in loss of the visual field, and in the end in blindness. since no strategies to get the optic nerve to regenerate have so far been overly successful, there is basically just one thing to do: lower intraocular pressure to a point where it will be low enough to allow sufficient blood to reach the optic nerve. this can be done with medication, or surgically. in surgery there are two options; enhance outflow of the aqueous humour to lower pressure, or decrease aqueous production. the former is done e.g. by widening schlemm's canal or by creating a fistula, an artificial outflow, usually through the sclera under the conjunctiva. the latter is done by destroying (cryo- or lasercoagulation) part of the ciliary body, the part of the eye where the aqueous is produced. this is of course just a quick overview... the cornea is only replaced when it has been damaged beyond repair- or when it is opaque while the eye remains functional.