Whether having LASIK or PRK, both eye surgery procedures require the use of an excimer laser. The excimer laser was first developed in the 1970s by IBM to etch computer chips. In the early 1980s, a resourceful ophthalmologist, Dr. Stephen Trokel, inspired that technology to treat human eyes. He recognized the laser’s ability to remove microscopic amounts of tissue and, unlike other lasers used in medicine, the excimer laser presented itself to be a cold laser, rather than a thermal laser. This discovery of using a cold laser to reshape the surface of the eye allowed for correction without cauterizing and causing damage to the surrounding tissue of the cornea.

After much research and exhausting work, the FDA allowed clinical studies to begin in the United States in the late 1980s. The first approval from the FDA came in October 1995. This approval allowed surgeons to use the excimer laser to treat mild to moderate nearsightedness, or myopia, with the technique of PRK, or Photorefractive Keratectomy. LASIK soon followed with the use of a thin corneal flap of tissue. In years following, the laser was approved for added corrections of astigmatism, then high myopia without astigmatism, hyperopia, high myopia with astigmatism, hyperopia with astigmatism and, finally, the most complicated correction, mixed astigmatism. Just recently, AMO announced the FDA has approved Advanced CustomVue for monovision also.

Since the excimer laser’s first approval, the technology continues to build on itself. With each advance, the outcomes seem to get better. Recently, an exciting new technology in LASIK and PRK became available, called Wavefront™ assisted excimer laser vision correction, or Advanced CustomVue™, which corrects refractive errors with 25 times more precision than traditional LASIK and PRK.