History of LASIK: Part-I

Although LASIK eye surgery remains fairly young in age, the usage of refractive eye surgery has a long history. Most people think of LASIK as a new procedure to treat bad vision. However, the first LASIK procedure in the United States was actually done over 16 years ago.

Refractive surgery was born over fifty years ago, when Professor Dr. Jose I. Barrager of Bogotá, Colombia developed a new technique to correct vision deficiencies. During this procedure, an instrument called a microkeratome was used to shave off a thin cap of corneal tissue. This cap was treated similar to a contact lens – it was removed, reshaped, and finally replaced onto the eye. This corrective procedure was called myopic keratomileusis (MKM for short) and Dr. Jose I. Barrager is considered by many to be the father of modern refractive surgery.

MKM was an important first step in vision correction surgery. It provided doctors with knowledge about how much of the cornea had to be left unaltered to provide a stable long-term result. MKM utilized a very rudimentary microkeratome, which is the instrument that today is mainly used to create the flap in LASIK surgery.

Continuing with the history of LASIK, we will throw some light on other achievements in future posts.

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