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Who invented refractive surgery?

Actually, no one person invented refractive surgery. There has been a keen interest in surgically changing the eye as long as there have been glasses. The modern era started at the turn of the century, when a Dutch ophthalmologist began investigating radial keratotomy. This was continued in Japan in the 1930's, but without success. Finally in the 1970's, after observing a young boy with eye trauma, Dr. Fyodorov of Russia developed and popularized a successful and useful radial keratotomy procedure. This procedure was introduced in the United States in 1978. Since it was introduced in 1978, over 2 million people in the U.S. have had the procedure. As in all fields of medicine, research continued and finally a laser was discovered that could help with refractive errors. The excimer laser has been used for industrial applications for many years. In the mid 1980's, an ophthalmologist, Dr. Trokel, suggested the energy of this laser could effectively and precisely cut human cornea tissue. The excimer laser beam breaks the carbon bonds in the molecules of cornea tissue, actually vaporizing the tissue. There is no heat involved so the cut is very precise and measured in microns. When the procedure was found to be effective, the FDA approved the use of the lasers. Dr. Bosem began investigating the use of the Eximer Laser 5 years prior to FDA approval. Laser refractive surgery has proven popular and effective in the rest of the world and over a million procedures had been done by 1994.

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