Laser Eye Surgery Malpractice (LASIK) Cases Handled Nationally.

LASIK (Laser assisted in situ Keratomileusis) is the most frequent surgery performed in America. There were over 1 million procedures in 2000 and the numbers of surgeries performed is rapidly growing. Lasik Centers are now in shopping malls, the price is dropping and many celebrities have used it instead of glasses including golf champion Tiger Woods. Massive advertising has convinced millions of people that the procedure is safe and effective. Unfortunately the surgery has been associated with serious side effects.

Lasik is an Elective and primarily cosmetic surgery. Farsightedness or nearsightedness are pathological diseases that result from minor eyeball shape variations. By using Lasik, you are slicing and burning a healthy eye, and destroying the natural corneal tissue integrity.

Lasik surgery reshapes the cornea of the eye in an effort to reduce or eliminate the need for glasses or contact lenses in cases of myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness) and astigmatism (out of roundness).

Lasik attempts to reshape the transparent cornea at the front of the eye, it fine tunes the inner corneal layers with an Excimer laser, after a flap of corneal tissue is lifted. The Excimer laser produces a cool beam of ultraviolet light energy, which is used to remove a very precise amount of corneal tissue which changes the shape and curvature of the cornea to improve vision.

However Lasik may involve serious complications

Some dangers of the procedure include: inadequate techniques of the slice of the corneal flap , inability to smooth the flap post-surgery, blade and suction mishaps, microkeratome slippage, suction ring misalignment, debris and infection.

Healing complications may also result in: displacement, subsequent trauma, wrinkles, pain and epithelial growth at the site of the slice. All of these may cause blurring and astigmatism. While there have been a handful of verdicts in LASIK cases, there are less than 100 cases filed nationwide.

People undergoing Lasik surgery may experience night driving problems, including star bursts, haze, gloss and "dirty windshield" syndrome. The post-surgery vision measure by a Snelling chart may be 20-20, reports indicate that vision comfort problems in nearly 20% of the patients.

A 30 year old Massachusetts student was recently awarded a $1.1 million judgment for Lasik malpractice involving improper use of the knife that lifts the flap. To be referred to a specialist in eye surgery malpractice please contact us.