Who Invented Lasik Eye Surgery?

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Are you thinking about having laser eye surgery? In that case, you’ll probably go for LASIK, the most common type of refractive procedure that has helped more than 30 million individuals worldwide since it was originally approved in 1999. Since the 1980s, laser therapies have been used in medical procedures like vision repair. Who, however, developed laser eye surgery?

Dr Lendeer Jans Lans’ theories that cuts made in the cornea might correct corneal curvature and treat astigmatism were the forerunners of the procedure that we call refractive surgery. Later, in 1896, he released a theoretical article. Building on this idea, Dr Jose Barraquer claimed that we might treat refractive defects like myopia and hypermetropia by changing the cornea’s curvature as early as the late 1930s. Because of his contributions and innovations to the profession, he is regarded as the Father of Modern Refractive Surgery.

One of the key figures in introducing lasers into operating rooms was Dr Gholam Peyman, who invented LASIK eye surgery. Dr Peyman was born in Iran and lived there until he was 19 when he emigrated to Germany to further his education in medicine. Peyman’s growing fascination with using CO2 lasers led to the creation of his idea. He believed these kinds of lasers could be utilized to alter the cornea’s refractive characteristics. The development of the excimer laser gave his theory some additional support. Since the excimer laser is an ultraviolet laser, the success factors for employing it to perform minimally invasive procedures have been determined.

LASIK is one of Peyman’s many inventions, for which the U.S. has already given 174 patents. But because LASIK may be used to cure various eye diseases, including congenital ones, it has gained considerable notoriety.

After a few internship and residency assignments following his M.D. from the University of Freiburg in 1962, Dr Peyman finished a further postdoctoral fellowship in the retina at the Jules Stein Eye Institute of the UCLA School of Medicine in 1971.

Later, he would work as an assistant and associate professor at UCLA until eventually taking a position as professor of ophthalmology at the University of Illinois’ Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary from 1971 until 1987. Dr Peyman was interested in how lasers affected the eye’s tissues during this time.

He first started researching and analyzing how a CO2 laser might be used to alter the corneal structure in rabbit eyes. But he discovered that this laser was ineffective at carrying out the required procedure and removing the subsequent scarring. The surgery should be performed under a corneal epithelium flap to prevent scarring, discomfort, and other potential adverse effects. Concluding that Dr Peymen needed to wait for the development of a suitable laser that would allow for the appropriate ablation of the cornea. In 1980, he made these discoveries and his ideas public.

Dr Peyman learned about IBM Laboratories’ use of excimer lasers on organic material two years later. Dr Peyman had to wait until his ultimate patents were approved in 1989 to carry out numerous experimental tests examining the effects of excimer lasers with assistance from the Physics Department of the University of Helsinki because these lasers were brand-new and very expensive (Finland).

Key events that are crucial in the development of LASIK:

Father Szuniewicz, regarded as the father of refractive surgery, arrived in the United States in 1948 to pursue his pioneering work on corneal reshaping at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

In 1964, Professor Barraquer created two methods that significantly impacted the growth of refractive surgery.

Patients with ametropia (unable to concentrate images on the retina) can be treated with keratomileusis, an autoplastic treatment. Keratophakia: the implantation of donor corneal tissue into a recipient’s cornea after being frozen and shaped
The radial keratotomy procedure, developed by Dr Fyodorov in 1970, reduces nearsightedness by making a series of incisions into the patient’s cornea at predetermined depths. The quantity of nearsightedness dictated where and how many incisions were made.

1973–1983: The laser physics and chemistry group at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, Novel York, started looking into new applications for the recently acquired excimer laser. 1987 saw the first successful laser surgery done by Dr Trokel, who also invented the Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK) procedure and patented the excimer laser for eyesight correction.

The first ophthalmologists in the United States to perform LASIK were Drs. Slade and Brint in 1991. In LASIK, the outer cornea was flapped with a microkeratome and then folded back to allow the excimer laser to reshape the inner cornea and rectify the refractive defect.
While LASIK has been practised in the U.S. since the early 1990s, it was an “off-label” application of the excimer laser because it wasn’t until 1996 that the FDA gave the device.
Biomedical engineer Dr Tibor Juhasz started the effort toward femtosecond laser use in medical procedures in 2001. The FDA authorized IntraLase’s femtosecond laser in LASIK surgeries in 2001, making the treatment entirely blade-free.
2015- According to a 2015 study, those who had LASIK with blades or without blades experienced comparable outcomes. The corneal flap can be controlled more precisely with laser-based LASIK, however. The likelihood of difficulties and the requirement for additional operations may decrease as a result.

Conclusion

LASIK and other refractive eye operations have improved thanks to developments. Still, without Dr Peyman’s ground-breaking work with lasers and refractive corrections, we might not have laser eye surgery as we know it today.