Menu - Part 4: A Fourth List of Publications for Potential Posting

First, two updates on previously published items:

Avastin Update: Medicare not Likely to Cover its Use

Following posting of the original article – Avastin: A New Hope for Treating AMD, I found an online article that clarifies the Medicare position on “off-label” usage of this drug.

Inlays, Onlays, Rings & Things - Part 2

The original article was written in 1990. Following the 2000 ASCRS meeting, I updated my findings on these types of devices.


As part of my coverage of both the AAO and ASCRS annual meetings, I sat in on the technical presentations and also spent several days walking the vast exhibit halls, gleaning information on new developments in both lasers and other ophthalmic technologies.

Customized Ablation/Custom Cornea: Wavefront Driven LASIK (WFL)

Before presenting my reports on several of these meetings, I would like to showcase two important technologies that I was among the first to write about: Customized Ablations (or Wavefront Driven LASIK), and LASEK, the technique of pushing aside the epithelium and performing PRK on the surface of the cornea – as opposed to first making a flap with a microkeratome or laser, and then zapping the cornea to reshape it.

Here, in chronological order, is a series of writeups on these techniques:

1. I’ve Seen the Future....and its Custom Cornea, OSN, June 15, 1999.

I first learned about custom ablation at the 1998 AAO meeting, but it was at the 1999 ASCRS meeting that I came to realize that it was the future of refractive surgery.

2. Customized Ablation: the Future is Close, OSN, February 15, 2000.

My first encounter with wavefront and ray tracing diagnostics as a pre-cursor to customized ablation.

3. Customized Ablation: Getting Closer Yet, OSN, August 1, 2000.

At the 2000 ASCRS meeting I learned first-hand of the early results on the initial human clinical trials using wavefront combined with LASIK.

4. Customized Ablation: The Wave Moves Forward.....but Keep an Eye on a Newly Developed Technique....LASEK!, OSN, January 1, 2001.

My first exposure to LASEK – laser epithelial keratoplasty, as I explained it in detail.

5. AAO Report: LASEK, Customized Ablation Draws Interest, OSN, January 1, 2002.

More results from ongoing custom LASIK trials and a new technique for performing LASEK.

6. AAO Refractive Pre-Meeting Focuses on LASIK, LASEK, OSN, January 15, 2002.

An overview of what was reported at the RSIG pre-AAO meeting.

7. ASCRS Report: Customized Ablation, Hyperopia & More, OSN, August 1, 2002.

An overview from the 2002 ASCRS meeting.

8. An AAO 2002 Update: Classic vs. Custom LASIK -- The Battle Continues, OSN, January 1, 2003.

And finally, my last report for OSN, reviewing the latest developments occurring at the 2002 AAO meeting.

9. Custom Ablation #9: Questions......and Answers (May 5, 2006)

An update and answer on the question – Custom vs Classic Lasik.