Refractive Surgery News

Researchers Admit to High Incidence of Long-term Pain Following Refractive Surgery

Neural Basis of Sensation in Intact and Injured Corneas  Experimental Eye Research 78 (2004) 513–525 Carlos Belmonte, M.  Carmen Acosta, Juana Gallar Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, Universidad Miguel Herna´ndez–CSIC, Apdo correos 18, 03550 San Juan de Alicante, Spain Abstract A renewed interest in the characteristics and neural basis of corneal and conjunctival sensations is developing in recent years due to the high incidence of discomfort and altered sensitivity of the cornea following refractive surgery, use of contact lenses...
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TLC V.P. of Marketing Describes Co-management Payments to Optometrists As "Marketing Costs"

What’s the Right Price For LASIK? Walt Bethke, Managing Editor “Comanagement costs overlap with marketing costs,” says Anna Austin, vice president of marketing for TLC Vision. “If you’re comanaging some of your refractive patients, obviously you may pay more to the comanager than if you just followed up the patient yourself. But, that referral might have actually replaced a marketing cost you would have incurred if you had to generate that patient. So, though there’s a cost in maintaining a...
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The Promise of Refractive Surgery: A Promise Not Kept

An Insiders Journal on the Evolution and Misinformation of Refractive Surgery Dedicated to: And the thousands of others whose quality of life has suffered greatly as a result of believing the professionally communicated promise of refractive surgery Table of Contents Section Page Introduction 2 Refractive Surgery and Misinformation 3 Fundamentals of LASIK 5 LASIK’s surgical landscape: the Cornea Asphericity and imaging of light rays on the retina The loss of contrast sensitivity and quality of vision Dry eye DLK (diffuse...
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Appeals Court Overturns Judge's Order for New Trial in Pilot's Case

The Arizona Court of Appeals has overturned a judge's order for a new trial in the case of a former airline pilot who sued for damage done by LASIK eye surgery. The decision reinstates the $4 million verdict, the largest award ever given in a case involving the popular eye surgery, said the attorney for plaintiff Steve Post. Post, a 33-year-old resident of Sierra Vista, is a former commercial pilot for United Airlines who claims his night vision was destroyed...
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T.V. Show Compares LASIK surgeons to Online Perverts

`Law & Order' puts Patriot Act on trial Thank heavens for sweeps. Only during these arbitrarily chosen months on Nielsen's calendar do I learn the truth about online perverts and fly-by-night LASIK surgeons on our suddenly perked-up local news. Also, I get to watch episodes of "Law & Order," TV's most efficient recycler of live and late-breaking story lines. Because I prefer the new and different to the old and familiar -- call it an occupational hazard -- I rely...
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N.J. Supreme Court Says Doctors, Lawyers Can't Be Sued for Consumer Fraud

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Doctors, lawyers and other professionals cannot be sued for false advertising under New Jersey's consumer fraud law because it wasn't written to cover them, the state Supreme Court ruled. The decision issued Monday overturns a ruling made in March 2003 by a state appellate court. It throws out a class-action lawsuit filed against Dr. Joseph Dello Russo, an eye surgeon who widely advertises his LASIK surgery to improve vision. The suit focused on claims by...
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Laser Eye Surgery Complaints Double

Negligence claims involving laser eye surgery have more than doubled in the last six years, according to the UK's largest insurer for doctors. The Medical Defence Union members said that while some of the claims were over faulty surgery, many more centred on patients' "unrealistic expectations" about what could be achieved. In February the Consumers' Association warned that people who undergo laser eye surgery are "gambling with their sight". It warned that clinics made overblown claims and did not highlight...
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