Radial Keratotomy (RK) invented in the 1950’s
In 1950’s, Dr. Tsutomu Sato of Japan began performing the first documented experimental radial keratotomy eye surgery but sadly his results were not encouraging, as many of his patients often experienced worse eyesight after experimental treatment. In the 1970s, Dr. Fyodorov from Russia made tremendous strides with radial keratotomy in large part because of an incident with a patient who was a young boy with accidental corneal lacerations from broken eyeglasses. Dr. Fyodorov noticed after the accident, which resulted in the lacerations to the boy’s cornea that he had less myopia also known as nearsightedness. Dr. Fyodorov figured out how to make these surgical incisions to improve the results from radial keratotomy.
One negative to the outdated past radial keratotomy surgeries was its low success rate was highly correlated to a surgeon’s individual skills. This motivated and encouraged ophthalmic medical inventors to develop safer and more predictable methods of corrective vision surgery. During 1970s, an IBM researcher, Dr. Srinivasin, discovered the potential of the excimer laser to replace the scalpel in reshaping corneal tissue. Until this point in time, lasers were solely used for industrial and commercial purposes.
Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK)
Photorefractive keratectomy is like radial keratotomy but instead of using a scalpel, an excimer laser is used to make incisions to the cornea. This new type of laser eye surgery was introduced by a New York ophthalmologist, Dr. Steven Trokel. In 1983, Dr. Trokel was working with Dr. Srinivasan to perform some of the first PRK laser eye correction in Germany. In 1987, the FDA allowed testing the excimer laser for use in PRK laser eye surgery. While PRK patients can take longer to recover than LASIK patients, there are advantages to PRK particularly for individuals who engage in physical activities such as boxing or mixed martial arts. PRK is also a laser vision correction procedure which can be performed on individuals whose cornea may be too thin for LASIK eye surgery.
LASIK Eye Surgery
Laser Vision Correction is commonly performed to reduce a person’s dependency on glasses and contact lenses. One of the more popular forms of laser vision correction is LASIK eye surgery. LASIK is an acronym for “Laser Assisted In-Situ Keratomileusis”. In-Situ is Latin for “in its original place/position.” Kerato is Greek for “cornea” and mileusis is also Greek and means “to shape”. Laser Vision Correction is often used to treat nearsightedness (myopia), farsightedness (hyperopia) and astigmatism.LASIK eye surgery was first performed in America in 1991. With LASIK, a patient’s cornea stays intact which typically allows for a much faster recovery. Dr. Ioannis Pallikaris labeled the procedure as LASIK and he was the first eye surgeon to create the corneal flap that is still used today in most LASIK procedures. Until then, ophthalmic surgeons had to remove the entire top layer of the epithelium. While LASIK eye surgery is not the most recent advancement in laser vision correction, QualSight respects the pioneers and medical professionals who made LASIK eye surgery possible.
When people want to reduce their dependency on glasses or contact lenses, LASIK is the most popular laser vision correction in the United States. The second most popular is PRK, short for photorefractive keratectomy. Both LASIK and PRK are considered laser vision correction and most people do not realize the exact same laser can be used to reshape the cornea in both procedures. In fact, the major difference between PRK and LASIK is how the cornea is exposed or “prepared” for the actual laser. PRK does not create a flap to expose the part of the eye the surgeon wishes to reshape.
