What Is Lasik Eye Surgery?
LASIK eye surgery is an innovation and surgical procedure specifically focused on reducing a person's need to wear corrective glasses or contact lens. The idea behind LASIK eye surgery is to correct what are known as refractive errors due to imperfections in the shape of the eye-specifically the cornea. If the eye and the cornea were shaped perfectly, there would be no blurred vision but such is not the case for many and the procedures of LASIK eye surgery attempt to reshape the cornea so that it is as close to perfection as possible. Most of us think that LASIK eye surgery is a relatively-new procedure but did you know that development was started over 59 years ago? The early roots of LASIK eye surgery began in 1948 although it was not known by that name. But we'll come back to the history shortly. In order to understand the history of LASIK eye surgery, one should understand the physical aspects of what the surgery corrects. There are three main refractive errors caused by imperfections in the eye. First, there is what is known as myopia. You probably know myopia by its common term "nearsightedness." With myopia, one can see objects clearly at close proximity while objects far away are blurred. The other imperfection is hyperopia. Hyperopia is just the opposite. Persons with hyperopia can see objects clearly far away and objects near are blurred. The third major imperfection is known as astigmatism and is due to irregularities in the lens (cornea) of the eye. Astigmatism can be thought of as a combination of myopia and hyperopia. The idea behind LASIK eye surgery is to use procedures to reshape the cornea to a condition that will correct these refractive errors. In LASIK eye surgery, reshaping is accomplished by removing very small portions of corneal tissue until the desired shape is achieved. Well in 1948, in Bogota, Colombia, the first beginnings of what would later evolve into LASIK eye surgery began. Dr. Jose Barraquer would take the cornea and remove 60% of it. Then, he would freeze it and reshape it using a lathe and finally sew it back into the eye. This procedure was not named LASIK eye surgery. It was known as Myopic Keratomileusis or abbreviated as MKM. MKM provided the basis for later development of LASIK eye surgery because it gave doctors knowledge of how much the cornea could be safely altered. As you can imagine, this procedure was very difficult and not very safe. With the development of the Excimer laser by the U.S. military, LASIK eye surgery would later come on the scene. This laser technology was modified by an ophthalmologist named Steven Trokel who would later describe its use in removing corneal tissue in 1983. This lead the way to a procedure known as Photorefractive Keratectomy or PRK and it is the predecessor to LASIK. PRK was possible because of the extreme precision of the Excimer laser which could remove corneal tissue to correct eye imperfections at metrics of 39 millionths of an inch in 12 billionths of a second. And, because of the accuracy of the laser, less corneal tissue had to be removed. Welcome the era of LASIK eye surgery. |
