Most hospital service pages list everything and admit nothing. This one is written the other way round. Below is what our KPHB centre in Kukatpally actually handles day to day, and just as importantly, the situations where the right answer is to send you elsewhere in the group. Knowing the second list saves you a wasted trip.
Refractive surgery: the centre's strongest suit
KPHB is one of only two MediVision centres where SILK is performed, the other being Masab Tank. SILK runs on the ELITA femtosecond platform and is a small-incision lenticule procedure: a lenticule of tissue is shaped inside an intact cornea and removed through a short opening, with no flap created.
The full refractive menu here includes:
- SILK on ELITA, for suitable myopia with or without astigmatism.
- LASIK, including femtosecond-assisted flap creation, on the MEL 90 excimer platform.
- Surface ablation (PRK and variants), which remains the correct answer for thinner corneas and for people whose work carries a real risk of eye trauma.
- Phakic lens implants for very high powers or corneas that cannot safely take laser treatment. This is assessed here and may be scheduled at Masab Tank depending on the case.
Nobody is booked for laser on the day they walk in. The workup takes two to three hours: corneal topography and tomography, thickness mapping, pupil measurement, a full dry eye assessment, dilated refraction and a retinal examination. Roughly speaking, a meaningful minority of people who come in wanting laser turn out not to be candidates, and being told that early is a good outcome, not a wasted afternoon.
Cataract surgery
Cataract work at KPHB covers routine and moderately complex cases, with biometry on the IOLMaster 700 and ARGOS, and phacoemulsification on the Alcon Centurion and UNITY platforms.
Two honest points about lens choice, because it is where money and expectation collide:
- A monofocal lens gives excellent distance vision and you wear reading glasses. That is not a compromise. For a large number of patients it is the best result available and the cheapest.
- Multifocal and extended-depth lenses reduce dependence on glasses, not eliminate it. They can also introduce halos and glare at night. If you drive at night for a living, we will usually talk you out of them.
A toric lens to correct significant astigmatism is a different matter. That one is often worth the extra cost regardless of which distance you prioritise.
Glaucoma, retina and cornea
Glaucoma is a long relationship rather than a procedure. KPHB runs pressure monitoring, Humphrey visual field testing, OCT nerve fibre analysis, medical management and laser procedures. Surgical glaucoma cases needing inpatient care are done at Masab Tank. The reason to attend regularly is blunt: glaucoma takes vision silently and permanently, and treatment protects what is left rather than restoring what is gone.
Retina services include dilated examination, OCT and OCT angiography, Optos ultra-widefield imaging, retinal lasers and intravitreal injections for diabetic macular oedema and age-related macular degeneration. Diabetic screening is the highest-volume retina activity here and the one most often skipped by patients who feel perfectly fine. Vitreoretinal surgery, including retinal detachment repair, is done at the flagship.
Cornea covers dry eye and ocular surface disease, keratoconus assessment and collagen cross-linking, infective keratitis management and contact lens fitting for irregular corneas. Corneal transplantation is a Masab Tank service, tied to the eye bank and inpatient facilities there.
Children, squint and oculoplasty
Paediatric ophthalmology at KPHB handles refractive testing in children, amblyopia (lazy eye) management, and screening referred from schools. The single most important thing to know about amblyopia is the deadline: treatment works well in early childhood and progressively less well after roughly the age of eight. A child who squints, tilts their head, sits close to the television or complains of headache while reading should be examined, not watched.
Squint assessment for both children and adults runs here, with surgery scheduled according to complexity. Adult squint surgery is not cosmetic-only; restoring alignment can restore binocular function and, in many cases, matters greatly for confidence at work.
Oculoplasty covers watering eyes and blocked tear ducts, droopy eyelids, lid lumps, entropion and ectropion, and thyroid eye disease assessment. Larger reconstructive and orbital work is done at Masab Tank.
What KPHB is not the right place for
This is the part worth reading before you set out.
- Sudden, severe eye emergencies at night. KPHB runs until 8:30 pm. Round-the-clock emergency cover is at Masab Tank, our 50-bed flagship, on +91 40-4245 6666. Chemical splash, penetrating injury, sudden loss of vision, sudden onset of flashes with a curtain across the field, or an acutely painful red eye with vomiting are all "go now" situations. See emergency eye care for what to do first.
- Cases needing admission. Inpatient beds are at the flagship.
- Corneal transplantation, complex vitreoretinal surgery, complex orbital surgery. Assessed at KPHB, performed at Masab Tank.
Being sent to another centre is not a runaround. It is the same medical records, the same group, often the same consultant on a different day of the week, and a theatre set up for the specific thing you need.
Practical details
KPHB is open until 8:30 pm, which makes it the easiest of our centres to reach after work. Bring your old glasses, current drops and any previous reports. If you are coming for a refractive assessment, stop soft contact lenses for at least a few days beforehand and expect to be there for most of a morning or afternoon.
If you are not sure which service you need, book a general consultation and let the examination decide. Details for all five centres are on the branches page, and appointments can be made online or on +91 90001 80035.
