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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
LASIK eye surgery is a procedure that corrects certain vision problems, reducing or eliminating the need for eyeglasses or corrective lenses. LASIK is short for laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis, the technical term for the surgical procedure.
LASIK eye surgery is the most common type of refractive surgery. Refractive surgery changes the shape of your cornea — the dome-shaped transparent tissue at the front of your eye. The desired result of LASIK eye surgery is to bend (refract) light rays to focus more precisely on your retina rather than at some point beyond or short of your retina.
The goal of LASIK eye surgery is to produce clearer, sharper vision.
- Bower KS. Laser refractive surgery. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Jan. 5, 2011.
- Sakimoto T, et al. Laser eye surgery for refractive errors. The Lancet. 2006;367:1432.
- Mimura T, et al. Refractive surgery. In: Yanoff M, et al. Ophthalmology. 3rd ed. Edinburgh, U.K.: Mosby Elsevier; 2009. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/212799885-2/0/1869/0.html. Accessed Jan. 6, 2011.
- Wavefront-guided LASIK. American Academy of Ophthalmology. http://one.aao.org/CE/EducationalProducts/FPSnippet.aspx?tid=0202397v&mid=fp029030a-1&sid=fp20080006&filename=fpv26-02903-01_modulediv.xml. Accessed Jan 6, 2011.
- LASIK. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/LASIK/expect.htm. Accessed Jan. 6, 2011.
- Robertson DM (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic. Rochester, Minn. Jan. 16, 2011.
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