Laser Surgery For Eyes - Questions You Should Ask Your Surgeon

Great vision occurs when your eyes focus your vision precisely on the retina "goal line." If you are near sighted, your eyes focus your vision before the goal line. Whether the one, two or five-yard line, your focus comes up short.

Far sightedness is when you focus in the end zone, past the goal line. Again, one, two or five yards into the end zone is too far.

Astigmatism occurs when the focus point for each eye is at a different spot. Near sighted astigmatism would have one eye focusing at the two-yard line and one eye at the five-yard line. Farsighted astigmatism would be one eye two yards in the end zone and the other eye 5 yards in the end zone.

Mixed astigmatism occurs when one eye focuses at the one-yard line and the other in the end zone two yards deep.

The need for reading glasses as one gets older is called Presbyopia. This occurs when viewing objects close to you, the eye's ability to find the goal line, even with correction starts to decline.

While Presbyopia cannot be treated with laser vision correction, many patients elect to have one eye corrected for near vision and one eye for distance vision (this is called monovision) to delay the need for reading glasses.

Improving your Vision

Since they are your eyes, it probably is worthwhile to know a little more about the nuts and bolts in determining the right combination of man, machine, your eye condition and your budget.

Machines

There is Diagnostic Equipment to evaluate your eye's condition, a device called a Microkeratome to make the "flap", and the Laser to make the corrections. Know, first off, that all these medical devices have received FDA approval. For now, we will focus only on the Laser machines.

Lasik correction occurs when the laser machine "pulses" to makes corrections to your eye. Broad Beam lasers generally make "wider" overall corrections, whereas Slit Scanning laser systems make a number of smaller pulses to make "micro" adjustments. The skill of the surgeon, while always important, is more so in the slit scanning procedure.

Spot Scanning, the newest technology, uses radar to track the tiny movements of your eye during surgery and even smaller beam pulses to make more precise corrections. Currently, the only approved laser device for spot scanning is the Summit Autonomous LADARVision®. Thus far, the LADARVision® is the only laser with FDA approval to treat hyperopia, hyperopia with astigmatism, and mixed astigmatism.

FDA Approved Lasik Lasers Type	Conditions
Summit Autonomous LADARVision® Spot Scanning	Farsighted/Nearsighted/Astigmatism
Summit Apex Plus^TM Broad beam	Nearsighted/Astigmatism
Bausch & Lomb Technolas 217A Spot Scanning	Nearsighted/Astigmatism
Nidek EC-5000 Slit Scanning	Nearsighted/Astigmatism
VISX STAR S2 Excimer Laser System Broad Beam	Nearsighted/Astigmatism
LaserScan LSX® Excimer Laser (PRK only) Spot Scanning	Nearsighted/Astigmatism

Another type of refractive surgery is thermokeratoplasty (LTK) in which heat is used to reshape the cornea. The source of the heat can be a laser, but it is a different kind of laser than is used for LASIK and PRK.

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