Quality data important to attract younger patients to LASIK

I have been involved with corneal refractive surgery since 1981, when as a young assistant professor and director of the Cornea Service at the University of Minnesota Department of Ophthalmology, I was invited by my friend George O. Waring III, MD, to participate as a surgeon on the so-called PERK study.In 1988, I acquired one of the first 10 excimer lasers in the U.S. and participated in multiple clinical trials that continue to date as laser corneal refractive surgery technology evolves and improves. I continued with radial and astigmatic keratotomy, pioneering and teaching mini-RK and the ARC-T system of corneal relaxing incisions for astigmatism until 1995-1996, when the first two excimer lasers, Summit and Visx, were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. I then abandoned the mini-RK procedure for myopia in favor of laser corneal refractive surgery and limited my use of ARC-T incisions to my refractive cataract surgery practice.