Am I a Good Candidate for LASIK?

By Jeffrey Martin MD

Published on March 31, 2010

Many patients come to our Long Island LASIK practice wanting to know if they are good candidates for LASIK laser eye surgery. Laser vision correction has come a long way and many patients that would not have been good candidates in the past can safely have LASIK today. The most significant advances in laser vision correction technology is the development of the Intralase laser for flap making and CustomVue with iris registration.

With Intralase, a laser is used to make a superficial flap in the cornea. This flap is then lifted and the cornea is reshaped to improve vision. Flaps can also be created using metal blade machines called microkeratomes. Dr. Jeffrey Martin feels use of microkeratomes for flap creation is not as safe as the Intralase laser. Dr. Martin has not used a microkeratome in about four years and enjoys more precision and greater success with Intralase. Intralase creates small cavitation bubbles that connect to form a flap. This makes the thinnest and most accurate flap possible, according to Dr. Martin.

With CustomVue, the system takes a unique fingerprint of each patient's vision, and then precisely reshapes the cornea to produce clear vision. The CustomeVue laser automatically centers, automatically tracks, and uses iris registration to exactly place the ablation. This technological breakthrough has revolutionized the laser vision correction industry.

With all of this great technology, some patients are still better off not having LASIK. Patients with corneal pathology causing an unstable corneal structure should not have laser vision correction. This includes patients with keratoconus and pellucid marginal degeneration. Patients with thin corneas should not have LASIK, but can sometimes safely have advanced surface ablation or PRK. Patients with higher prescriptions are sometimes better served with a surface laser vision correction procedure. Moderate dry eye can be a contraindication for laser vision correction. Significant ocular pathology such as cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy, can make the LASIK outcome uncertain and therefore not recommended.

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