Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital

Hello,

 I am doctor Anurag Agarwal. I am an practicing ophthalmologist for the past 18 years. Today let's discuss the topic of Lasik or laser surgery for number correction, this is one of the most controversial and the most glamorous surgeries we do and the most glamorous and controversial topics that we discuss in our conferences, controversial because this process has undergone a lot of refinement over the past 20 years. We initially started with radial keratotomy we moved to PRK and now we have come to lasik and the initial surgeries were fraught with many complications, a lot of people did not get the expected results and so there were unsatisfied people. Lasik surgery today has evolved after 20 years of hard work of biomedical engineers and the ophthalmologist and it can be called as very safe and very simple surgery.

The patient is usually operated and goes out of the operation theatre within 10 minutes and it is done for both the eyes at one sitting. Who is a patient for lasik let us discuss that first, usually anyone can be a patient of lasik where the number has stopped increasing so typically we don't select a patient before the age of 18, after 18 patient’s height and body stops growing and we know that the refractive stability is there and we can select that patient. What is safety? safety profile is equally important because people still have a lot of misconceptions and a lot of fears, let us assure you and let us assure all the people out there that we do a number of tests to make sure that the patient is a fit candidate for lasik. Typically, if we get 100 patients who decide to go for lasik we are able to do lasik for about 95 of them, 5 people automatically get rejected when we do the necessary test, so that is the level of safety checks that we follow by which we are able to eliminate the unsuitable candidates for lasik surgery. The requisite tests usually are in the form of corneal thickness, pachymetry, topography and various extra test. Once we are sure that the patient is a fit patient for lasik surgery then comes to the question of the modality of treatment, largely we are following two types of modalities, one is the lasik with blade and one is the bladeless Lasik. Bladeless lasik is the newer technology also called as femto lasik, is very very successful and very accurate technology, I describe it to my patients as a space-edge technology for lasik and most of my patients who have got the bladeless Lasik are very very happy with results.

The technology with the blade also I have been practicing for the past 10 years and I have gotten lots of happy patients and a lot of happy doctors who have gotten done from me, so in short lasik surgery I can assure you is very safe, very successful, the only limiting factor in lasik which was till sometime back was the cost factor. We were typically for lasik with blade around a certain amount about 10 years back and we are charging the same amount today so in that terms of economy also you can say that the cost of lasik surgery has stabilized and stayed the same over the past 10 years whereas the cost of everything else has gone up with inflation. Lasik has become very economical and a very successful surgery in those terms compared to glasses and this is what I would like to tell my friends that please whenever you feel like whenever people with high numbers, low numbers anyone thinks of getting rid of the numbers feel free to contact your doctor, do it very confidently and I am sure you will come out with the excellent result and glasses free environment. People who wish to get in touch with me, I am available on the platform of lybrate you can take the help of lybrate, sign in with your details and get in touch with me. 

Thank you.

Hi,

I am Dr. Anurag Agarwal, Ophthalmologist. I am practicing from the past 18 years. Today I will talk about LASIK surgery and some misconceptions related to it. As you all know that LASIK surgery is also known as refractive surgery and done to remove spectacles. There are a lot of misconceptions associated with this. Every time a patient comes to me, the patient is full of fear. The part of it is related to history like prior to LASIK surgery, there were some other surgeries which are known as RK, PRK which were not so safe and created fear in the patient's mind. Even with this patient lost his eye. So, this is the reason that the patient is so scared. But LASIK surgery is 100% safe and done with the necessary tests. So, any patient who comes to us for refractive surgery, we do a complete workup for the patient.

The first part is we access the patient's eye. We do various tests like topography which is a mapping of the cornea. We do a complete refractive workup. We analyze the patient whether he is a fit person for it or not. Once we see that patient is completely fit for the LASIK surgery then only we ask him to go for the surgery. In this, one out of 20 people will automatically get rejected because we have strict parameters. This is the first thing that we can reassure the patient. The 2nd thing patient asks whether is it going to be successful in the long term also and will the number completely go away? Right I said if we have selected ur patient correctly, we know that we can deliver a 100% result and then only we can assure that the number will completely go away.

This is the short term aspect of that. Even in the cases where the patient becomes perfectly zero, we can have a small part of the number returning back to the eye. That is a rare thing and it is known as regression. The patient can be again taken for the surgery and corrected at that time. Usually, we do that as a complementary procedure for the patient. The patient does not have to bare any charges for that. So, the LASIK surgery is completely safe and there should be no misconception associated with it.

Thank You.