Walk into eye surgeon Charles Manger's office, and two things stand out. First, there's the oversized waiting room with enough seating for a small army. And then there's the large bin brimming with eyeglasses cast aside by patients who have come here for laser eye surgery.
Manger and his colleagues are performing about 75 laser eye surgeries a week, especially the procedure known as Lasik. And his is hardly the only Southern California doctor's office filled with eager patients with bad eyesight.
Never before has there been an elective surgery procedure to match the Lasik phenomenon sweeping this country. With 1 million Americans expected to undergo the vision-correction procedure this year alone--that's about 19,000 a week--Lasik has become the most popular elective surgery in the country.
But now, the Lasik boom is experiencing growing pains. Recently, dissatisfied patients have created several Internet sites to organize consumers who report debilitating complications from Lasik.
And some eye surgeons--motivated by concern for patients or worries that bad publicity will spoil a lucrative business--have begun criticizing colleagues for misleading patients by over-hyping Lasik's benefits.
Meanwhile, federal regulators are developing new rules to govern how the excimer lasers used to perform the procedure are marketed and used.
But rather than muting the public clamor for Lasik surgery, doctors hope the attention will serve to reassure consumers that the procedure is adequately regulated and safe, some experts say.
"I think patients will be well-served to listen to the FDA," says Dr. Stephen G. Slade, a Houston ophthalmologist who was one of the first U.S. doctors to perform Lasik surgery.
Simple Surgery That's
Completed in Minutes
Lasik (short for laser in-situ keratomileusis) evolved from earlier refractive surgery techniques, including radial keratotomy (RK) and photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). Thanks to developments in laser technology, Lasik is, by all accounts, a great advance over the earlier vision-improvement surgeries.
In Lasik, a surgeon uses a knife called a microkeratome to cut a flap of the cornea. An excimer laser is used to reshape the cornea. Then the corneal flap is replaced. The procedure takes just a few minutes.
Doctors are using Lasik for patients with various vision problems, including myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness) and astigmatism (distorted vision).
