Robert McQueen of Danbury, Connecticut, age 32, works in one of the highly technical industries situated in that suburban city. He is the victim of moderately severe myopia with -5.00 diopters in each eye. For McQueen, contact lenses and eyeglasses are uncomfortable to wear. He’s tried all kinds of corrective lenses and spent a lot of money doing it.
One day in May, 1984, while visiting his eye doctor, McQueen noticed the doctor owned a piece of sophisticated high tech equipment. It was a computer, invented by Philadelphia ophthalmologist Frederic B. Kremer, M.D., which delivers a surgical plan for radial keratotomy using multiple regression analysis. The computer interested the patient and he asked lots of questions about RK.
The doctor explained that «each eye and each patient presents a different series of problems. Cookbook surgery cannot be used with this RK technique.» Then the eye surgeon showed McQueen the corneal thickness measuring device, the pachymeter, which meters the exact size of the cornea using sound waves. «Could you do the RK procedure to correct my nearsightedness?» Bob McQueen asked.
The following week he returned for a preoperative workup to determine if he was a candidate for RK. Intraocular pressures were taken. Corneal curvature was measured. Refraction was measured. Endothelial cell counts were done. All other necessary preoperative tests were carried out. Bob definitely was an RK candidate.
Without any requirement for the patient to spend 700 dollars for use of a hospital surgical room, the surgeon carried out the procedure in his exurban office the next week. The right eye was operated on first, and three weeks later the left eye was also corrected. The man’s vision is now 20/20 in the right eye and 20/25 in the left. He is nearsighted no more and doesn’t have to wear eyeglasses or contacts ever again.
Twenty-eight-year-old Janet Icons of Long Island, New York, is engaged to a man who had undergone RK for both eyes about four years ago. There was a time when his myopia was severe, but a Baltimore eye surgeon operated on him and obtained excellent results. He no longer wears any corrective lenses.
Ms. Icons’ fiancee virtually insisted that the young woman experience RK surgery also. He believed that it was silly to remain myopic because the condition can be made right in such a simple matter. Consequently, she visited the eye surgeon early in July 1984 to have the operation performed.
The ophthalmologist, seeing that Janet was only moderately nearsighted, warned her that she should not undergo radial keratotomy just to please her boyfriend. She decided to have the preoperative measurements completed anyway, and was amazed at the number of tests carried forward prior to accomplishing the correction. The Kremer computer read-out told the eye surgeon just what should be the depth of the cornea cuts for the patient. Janet requested the doctor to do the permanent surgical technique for her myopia if she was a candidate. She was, and he did.
In a few days the RK achieved an excellent correction of Janet Icons’ left eye. «The procedure is so simple and without discomfort,» she remarked immediately afterward. There was pleasure and surprise in her voice. Six weeks later when the right eye was fixed, as well, her vision had been improved to 20/20 in each of the operated eyes. Janet declared, «My fiancee was absolutely right in recommending radial keratotomy. He really loves me.»
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