- Today, laser technology is used in many areas of medicine. There are many different types of lasers, even in the eye, there are different lasers for different eye diseases.
- Excimer laser is a treatment based on giving the desired shape to the cornea by using the vaporizing effect of argon fluoride gas with a wavelength of 193 nanometers in the corneal layer without causing heating and damage to the surrounding tissues and thus changing the corneal refractivity.
- Excimer laser is used to correct myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism.
Who can it be applied to?
- Theoretically over the age of 18 and under the age of 55
- However, age is not the most important factor when making a laser decision; the refractive error should not have increased by more than 0.50 in the last 2 years.
- Excimer laser is effective in eyes that have stopped increasing in number.
- Excimer laser does not have the effect of stopping the number increase, therefore, in patients whose number continues to increase, it is necessary not to rush for laser and wait for the number to stabilize. If laser treatment is performed even though the number continues to increase, the patient will develop refractive errors that will require the patient to wear glasses or lenses again after a few years and the patient will be unhappy and may need surgery again.
- The thickness of the cornea should be sufficient for the correction to be made (a completely personalized evaluation is made here). For example, the patient's refractive error is 8 diopters but the cornea is thick and laser can be performed, there are also patients with 2 diopters who are not suitable for laser because their cornea is thin.
- The shape of the cornea should also be suitable for laser. Patients with a progressive corneal disease called keratoconus or those with a predisposition to keratoconus cannot undergo laser.
