WHAT IS LASER EYE SURGERY?
Refractive or Laser Eye Surgery (LES) is a laser reshaping of cornea thus changing its focusing power (1), (pictures 1,2). For patients with moderate refractive errors this ambulatory procedure is a quick way to get free of glasses or contact lenses.
Picture 1. Eye doctor performing laser eye surgery
(source: whmc.af.mil)
COST OF LASER EYE SURGERY
The cost of LES can vary widely but it is rarely under $1,000 per eye (2).
REFRACTIVE ERRORS TO CORRECT WITH LES
The light from an observed object penetrates through the cornea, lens and viscose liquid of the eye globe, refracts, and focuses on retina as an image. In farsightedness - hyperopia the eye globe is too short, and since the lens cannot refract the light from near objects enough, the light will fall behind retina and give a blurred image. In presbyopia (farsightedness of the aged) the lens becomes rigid and cannot refract the light from near objects efficiently, so it will again focus behind the retina. In nearsightedness (myopia), the eye globe is too long and light from distant objects will focus in front of the retina, so images of distant objects will be blurred. In astigmatism blurred vision is caused by irregularities in the corneal or lens shape (3). All mentioned refractive errors can be corrected with laser eye surgery.
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