Wednesday 18 December 2013

Radial Keratotomy: A Cure for Near Sightedness

near sightedness

Radial keratotomy (RK) can be a refractive surgical procedure employed to fix myopia or nearsightedness. Radial Keratotomy had come by accident instead of through meticulous research. The procedure was discovered by Dr. Svyatoslav Fyodorov when he operated considered one of his patients who he had met having a bicycle accident. The boy wore eyeglasses, which smashed on impact, and the glass splinters lodged into his eyes. The doctor had to create several radial incisions from the corneal tissue as a way to extract the glass. If the cornea healed, the doctor found the boy’s eyesight was substantially improved.

In radial keratotomy (RK), a series of
micro-fine incisions are created in the outer percentage of the cornea with the aid of a high-precision calibrated diamond knife. The surgeon administers an area anesthetic, since the incisions are superficial and the procedure is fairly easy. The corneal thickness on the patient’s eye is measured prior to surgery. Before the incisions are created, the diamond-edged cutting guitar is precisely set under the operating microscope. Thus by flattening the curvature of the cornea in such a manner, RK can very easily correct myopia or nearsightedness.

Radial keratotomy was first introduced in the usa in the 1980s. Initially it had been much of an investigational method, with doctors operating only one eye at any given time and waiting for at least 3 months to take notice of the results, before operating on the other eye. But the surgeons gained experience over time and now they may actually operate both eyes concurrently. Now, radial keratotomy can be a minor surgery that normally takes about 15 to 20 minutes for each eye.

Radial keratotomy is improving, owing much towards the rapid advances in technological innovation, and the fact that a number of such procedures have been performed successfully. However, RK is just not as precise as LASIK and PRK. Since, RK is less predictable, only some surgeons now perform this procedure.

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