Dishler Laser - Blog

It has been fifty years since the LASER was invented and 25 years ago was when the first laser vision correction procedure was performed.  About five years laser or almost 20 years ago the very first LASIK or instrastromal laser vision correction was performed in Italy, and it has been 15 years since Dishler Laser Institute began performing LASIK in Colorado.  We were also about the first to offer the all laser method of vision correction approximately 10 years ago.  Some of these events are being commerated this week in Paris at the ESCRS, a meeting of European and international doctors who are celebrating the changes that lasers have made in the field of vision correction.

It was early in the 1990's before anyone even thought about LASIK that we were first with another procedure, ALK.  In Automated Lamellar Keratoplasty (ALK) we used a microkeratome to make a thin flap on the cornea, and then removed a small amount of corneal tissue to reduce severe nearsightedness (sound familiar?).  This procedure was an outgrowth of an even older procedure where the front of the cornea was reshaped using a lathe, that dates back about forty years!  This new procedure was a major advancement, and I published on our results with nine other doctors from around the country, many of whom are leaders in their own community in refractive vision corrective surgery.  What we learned in these procedures made us realize that although our results were promising, they were inexact and needed the refinement that a laser could offer.