Refractive Eye Surgery for Myopia, Hyperopia and Astigmatism
Refractive eye surgery embraces all types of eye surgeries which aim to mend the refractive eye errors and other eye conditions. These surgeries seek to decrease people’s dependency on glasses and contacts. These include any or all surgical procedures that reduce refractive eye errors like myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. These may also include procedures like cataract surgery. Refractive surgery represents an exciting and evolving development in ophthalmology. It is rapidly gaining popularity. In the United States alone, there was an approximately 900,000 refractive surgeries that were performed in 2004 and again in 2005.
Factors Affecting the Surgery
The type of refractive surgical procedure that would be performed in an individual depends on various factors – age, type of eye error, degree of error and the possibility of condition reversibility. There are refractive surgery procedures, like LASIK and radial keratotomy, which have been extensively adopted and certified by the government; but there are procedures that are still awaiting evaluation and approval by the FDA.
Each type of refractive eye surgery procedure has its own risks. Individual who are considering undergoing a refractive eye surgery must research and know the procedure for a particular type of surgery before making any decision. An exhaustive study of the risks and benefits must be conducted before anything else.
The Different Procedures
Various refractive eye surgery procedures vary. These may include flap procedure, surface procedure, corneal incision procedures, and other procedures. An example of a flap procedure is the LASIK where the ophthalmic surgeon cuts a flap of a corneal tissue using microkeratome. Surface procedures differ from flap procedures only in the handling of the epithelial layer. An example is the LASIK which changes the shape of the cornea using Excimer laser.
An example of corneal incision procedure is the radial keratotomy which is a highly accepted and practiced refractive eye surgery procedure. This alters the shape of the cornea in order to reduce astigmatism or myopia. Other procedures of refractive eye surgery include thermal keratoplasty, laser thermal keratoplasty, intra-stromal rings or Intacs, and lens implantation to change refractive eye errors.
The risks in these types of procedures are relatively minimal although it cannot be recommended to just anybody. There are people who are not qualified to undergo refractive eye surgery treatment especially those with glaucoma, autoimmune diseases, uncontrolled vascular diseases, pregnant women, and people with eye diseases. However, there is such a huge promise in this field of medicine. Thousands of people with myopia who had undergone refractive eye surgery are now able to read comfortably without the aid of glasses or contacts.
Posted in Lasik and Laser Eye Surgery