EVER since Euclid laid down the laws of reflection in Optica in about 300BC, man has been determined to discover better ways to improve sight.
From the first reading stone, a glass magnifier invented in AD1000, to the wearable eye glasses created by the Italian Salvino D’Armate in 1284, to Adolph Fick’s glass contact lens in 1888, the science of optics has challenged society’s most brilliant minds.
But only the most daring and foolhardy scientists attempted to modify the eyeball itself: a Japanese scientist who tried corneal incisions last century discovered that it had disastrous consequences.
The first breakthrough came in the 1970s when the Russian Svyatoslav Fyodorov worked out a formula modifying the cornea to improve patients’ vision. But his discovery was purely theoretical as such alterations were impossible using normal surgical techniques.
Then laser technology arrived. Working in the IBM laboratories in 1982, Rangaswamy Srinivasan, James Wynne and Samuel Blum saw the potential of an Excimer laser, used to etch silicone computer chips, in manipulating biological tissue. It could remove tissue without causing heat damage to neighbouring material.
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Steven Trokel, a New York ophthalmologist, patented the Excimer laser for use in optics and performed the first laser surgery on a patient’s eyes in 1987.
The first laser eye treatment clinic using Dr Trokel’s laser was founded in Toronto in 1989 and the first British clinic was opened at Clatterbridge hospital on the Wirral in 1991. Laser eye surgery is now a mainstream treatment used on 90,000 people a year and costing about £1,000 an eye.But its history has not been incident free. A study in Health Which? last year claimed that the procedure suffered complication rates of 2 to 3 per cent.
According to the Medical Defence Union, the largest insurer for doctors in Britain, claims against laser eye surgeons have increased by 166 per cent in six years and account for a third of all claims against opthalmic surgeons.
In many cases, people still need glasses for certain activities, such as reading, driving, or going to the cinema.
Ashok Kumar, MP for Middlesbrough South and Cleveland East, told the House of Commons in February that, “surprisingly, the regulations covering (laser eye surgery) do not appear to be as stringent as those covering traditional cosmetic procedures”.
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Christine Tompkins, of the MDU, said: “Patients need to understand the risks. They need to think about whether or not the benefits they think they will get from the procedure outweigh the risks.”