Editing LASIK (section)

=== Laser refractive surgery ===
In 1980, [[Rangaswamy Srinivasan]], [[Samuel E. Blum]], and [[James J. Wynne]] at the [[IBM Research]] laboratory, discovered that an ultraviolet excimer laser could etch living tissue, with precision and with no thermal damage to the surrounding area. The phenomenon was termed "ablative photo-decomposition" (APD).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aip.org/ca/srinivasan.html |title=Prize for the Industrial Application of Physics Winner |website=American Institute of Physics |access-date=10 December 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928093030/http://www.aip.org/ca/srinivasan.html |archive-date=28 September 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=James Wynne | url=https://laserfest.org/lasers/pioneers/wynne.cfm | website=laserfest.org | access-date=30 December 2021 | archive-date=5 February 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230205044704/https://laserfest.org/lasers/pioneers/wynne.cfm | url-status=dead }}</ref>
Five years later, in 1985, Steven Trokel at the Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute, [[Columbia University]] in New York City, published his work using the excimer laser in radial keratotomy. He wrote,
:"The central corneal flattening obtained by radial diamond knife incisions has been duplicated by radial laser incisions in 18 enucleated human eyes. The incisions, made by 193 nm far-ultraviolet light radiation emitted by the excimer laser, produced corneal flattening ranging from 0.12 to 5.35 diopters. Both the depth of the corneal incisions and the degree of central corneal flattening correlated with the laser energy applied. Histopathology revealed the remarkably smooth edges of the laser incisions."<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Cotliar AM, Schubert HD, Mandel ER, Trokel SL | title = Excimer laser radial keratotomy | journal = Ophthalmology | volume = 92 | issue = 2 | pages = 206–8 | date = February 1985 | pmid = 3982798 | doi = 10.1016/s0161-6420(85)34052-6 }}</ref>