LASIK or Lasik,commonly referred to as laser eye surgery or laser vision correction,is a type of refractive surgery for the correction of myopia,hyperopia,and astigmatism. LASIK surgery is performed by an ophthalmologist who uses a femtosecond laser or a microkeratome to create a corneal flap to expose the corneal stroma and then an excimer laser to reshape the corneal stroma in order to improve visual acuity.
Photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and laser-assisted sub-epithelial keratectomy (LASEK) are laser eye surgery procedures intended to correct a person's vision,reducing dependency on glasses or contact lenses. LASEK and PRK permanently change the shape of the anterior central cornea using an excimer laser to ablate a small amount of tissue from the corneal stroma at the front of the eye,just under the corneal epithelium. The outer layer of the cornea is removed prior to the ablation.
Eye surgery,also known as ophthalmic surgery or ocular surgery,is surgery performed on the eye or its adnexa. Eye surgery is part of ophthalmology and is performed by an ophthalmologist or eye surgeon. The eye is a fragile organ,and requires due care before,during,and after a surgical procedure to minimize or prevent further damage. An eye surgeon is responsible for selecting the appropriate surgical procedure for the patient,and for taking the necessary safety precautions. Mentions of eye surgery can be found in several ancient texts dating back as early as 1800 BC,with cataract treatment starting in the fifth century BC. It continues to be a widely practiced class of surgery,with various techniques having been developed for treating eye problems.
Refractive surgery is an optional eye surgery used to improve the refractive state of the eye and decrease or eliminate dependency on glasses or contact lenses. This can include various methods of surgical remodeling of the cornea (keratomileusis),lens implantation or lens replacement. The most common methods today use excimer lasers to reshape the curvature of the cornea. Refractive eye surgeries are used to treat common vision disorders such as myopia,hyperopia,presbyopia and astigmatism.
Selig Percy Amoils,born 1933,is a South African ophthalmologist and biomedical engineering inventor. In 1965,Amoils refined the cryoextraction method of cataract surgery by developing a cryoprobe that was cooled through the Joule-Thomson effect of gas expansion. His system is still widely used in the fields of ophthalmology and gynaecology.
Pellucid marginal degeneration (PMD) is a degenerative corneal condition,often confused with keratoconus. It typically presents with painless vision loss affecting both eyes. Rarely,it may cause acute vision loss with severe pain due to perforation of the cornea. It is typically characterized by a clear,bilateral thinning (ectasia) in the inferior and peripheral region of the cornea,although some cases affect only one eye. The cause of the disease remains unclear.
Charles Munnerlyn is an American optical engineer. He constructed the first working excimer laser system for vision correction in 1985,and also developed the Munnerlyn Formula that dictates the amount of corneal tissue to be removed by the laser to correct vision disorders such as myopia and astigmatism. Munnerlyn is the founder of VISX,Incorporated,once the world's largest manufacturer of laser-based vision correction (LVC) systems. VISX is now owned by Abbott Laboratories.
Stephen Updegraff,M.D.,FACS is an American refractive surgeon best known for his early involvement in,and contributions to,LASIK. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons,a board-certified member of the American Board of Ophthalmology,a founding member of the American College of Ophthalmic Surgeons,and a member of the International Society of Refractive Surgery,the American Academy of Ophthalmology,the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery,and the Pine Ridge Eye Study Society. Updegraff currently serves as the medical director of Updegraff Vision in St. Petersburg,Florida.
Gholam A. Peyman is an Iranian American ophthalmologist,retina surgeon,and inventor. He is best known for his invention of LASIK eye surgery,a vision correction procedure designed to allow people to see clearly without glasses. He was awarded the first US patent for the procedure in 1989.
Jeffery J. Machat MD,FRCSC,DABO is an ophthalmologist in the United States and Canada specializing in surgical vision correction better known as refractive eye surgery. He is most known for being the Co-Founder of TLC Laser Eye Centers with Elias Vamvakas in 1993. The first TLC clinic was located in Windsor,Canada and treated thousands of patients from across all of North America. The clinic also hosted thousands of eye care specialists trying to learn about LASIK and PRK prior to US FDA approval which came three years later. Together Vamvakas and Machat built an incredible company of 83 LASIK clinics through both organic growth and strategic acquisition by May 2002 to become the largest provider of LASIK in North America. Dr. Machat pioneered not only LASIK but the concept of Optometric Comanagement throughout the 1990s,helping build a TLC network of over 14,000 referring optometrists by 2000. In 2005-2006,Machat spent time in Europe working to build Optical Express,helping David Moulsdale,owner and Founder,to transform the company from 300 optical stores into the leading provider of LASIK vision correction in Europe with 55 clinics in the span of 2 years.
Howard V. Gimbel FRCSC,AOE,FACS,CABES,is a Canadian ophthalmologist,university professor,senior editor,and amateur musician. He is better known for his invention,along with Thomas Neuhann,of the continuous curvilinear capsulorhexis (CCC),a technique employed in modern cataract surgery.
Peter S. Hersh is an American ophthalmologist,researcher,and specialist in LASIK eye surgery,keratoconus,and diseases of the cornea. He co-authored the article in the journal Ophthalmology that presented the results of the study that led to the first approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the excimer laser for the correction of nearsightedness in the United States. Hersh was also medical monitor of the study that led to approval of corneal collagen crosslinking for the treatment of keratoconus. He was the originator,in 2015,of CTAK for keratoconus,patent holder,and co-developer.
Raymond Mark Stein, MD,FRCSC,DABO,is a Canadian ophthalmologist. He practices refractive and cataract surgery. He is the medical director of the Bochner Eye Institute in Toronto,Ontario and Chief of Ophthalmology at the Scarborough General Hospital.
Sheraz Daya is a British ophthalmologist. Daya founded the Centre for Sight in 1996,and works in stem-cell research and sight restoration and correction surgery.
Farhad Hafezi is a prominent Swiss eye surgeon and researcher. Hafezi first gained recognition as a leading retina researcher in 1994,having been the first to discover a gene responsible for light-induced retinal degeneration. However,he changed his research focus to the cornea in 2003,and it is this work,particularly on corneal collagen cross-linking (CXL),which he helped pioneer,and advanced laser refractive surgery that he is internationally known for today. Hafezi's current clinical and laboratory research is focused on gaining a better understanding of the cornea. His research group at the University of Zurich has three main research foci:
Berthold Seitz is a German ophthalmologist,professor and director of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Saarland University Medical Center in Homburg,Saarland. He is known for his scientific contributions in the fields of cornea transplantation,cataract surgery and artificial lens-calculation after refractive corneal surgery as well as techniques of amniotic membrane transplantation and its histological integration patterns in the cornea.
Noel Alpins is an Australian ophthalmologist who developed the Alpins method of astigmatism analysis used in refractive,corneal,and cataract surgery,used in the research of LASIK.
Dimitri Azar is an American ophthalmologist,professor,inventor and businessman who has founded Twenty Twenty Therapeutics,a joint venture established by Santen and Verily. The Twenty Twenty products were ultimately transferred to Santen and Verily in September 2024. Azar served as a board member of Novartis and a member of the scientific advisory board of Verily,Alphabet's Life sciences research organization. He served as dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) from 2011 to 2018,and is currently Distinguished Professor and Executive Dean Emeritus.
Herbert Edward Kaufman is an American ophthalmologist who discovered idoxuridine,the first clinically useful antiviral agent;co-developed with William Bourne the clinical specular microscope to view the live corneal endothelium,co-developed timolol with Thomas Zimmerman,a new class of medications to treat glaucoma;corneal storage media for eye banks;natamycin,the first commercially available medication to treat fungal infections of the eye;co-developed with Tony Gasset the use of bandage contact lenses;and was involved in the first laser vision photorefractive keratectomy of the eye with Marguarite McDonald.
Clear lens extraction,also known as refractive lensectomy,custom lens replacement or refractive lens exchange is a surgical procedure in which clear lens of the human eye is removed. Unlike cataract surgery,where the cloudy lens is removed to treat a cataract,clear lens extraction is done to surgically correct refractive errors such as high myopia. It can also be done in hyperopic or presbyopic patients who wish to have a multifocal IOL implanted to avoid wearing glasses. It is also used as a treatment for diseases such as angle closure glaucoma.
