Excimer Laser Ablation Human Eye

Abstract

To the Editor.

—The use of the excimer laser to ablate corneal tissue for the correction of optical errors, such as myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism, was first suggested by Stephen Trokel, MD, of the Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY. We report a case of a patient who received excimer laser ablation that was designed to flatten the cornea in a putatively blind eye. This was performed as part of the early human safety and efficacy "blind eye" trials under the aegis of the Investigational Device Exemption granted by the Food and Drug Administration to Dr Trokel. Within 7 weeks of laser ablation, the patient, who had apparently been suffering from functional rather than physiologic blindness, had a visual acuity of 20/25 and then 20/20 without correction. After 6 months of follow-up, the cornea remained clear and the visual acuity appeared to be stable. This is,