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HOSPITAL NEWS October 1990 By Donna Kell EYE PATIENTS GET A GOOD LOOK AT DR. KARAS Sarabjit Gaidhu flew in from London, England to keep an eye appointment in Richmond Hill. |
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Mr. Gaidhu is one of more than 1,500 people who had myopic vision-vision so poor he couldn't see across a well-lit room-until he had the 15-minute eye surgery at Yair Karas's clinic. "It's virtually changed my life, really," Mr. Gaidhu says. "It's amazing when you wake up in the morning and everything's in focus." Since 1984, Dr. Karas has been performing radial keratotomy, a procedure to flatten the cornea using a diamond-edged surgical knife. Dr. Karas spent each weekend six summers ago perfecting the surgery by operating on cadavers with both his left and right hand. "This operation is probably the most difficult we have now because it requires a lot of skill and precision", he said. But the pile of discarded glasses in Dr. Karas' office is testimony to many happy customers. For several thousand dollars (OHIP does not cover the procedure) a nearsighted patient can expect to throw away glasses or wear a lighter prescription. One man in Manitoba recently wrote to Dr. Karas: "If indeed this surgery is possible for myself, I would give my right arm to get it performed." There are only a handful of doctors who perform the eye surgery in Canada, Dr. Karas says. Many doctors question the ethics of operating on what can be considered a "normal" eye. The greatest risk is that of infection, where the patient could loose the eye, Dr. Karas said. But his surgeries have all been infection-free. A new laser therapy being tested in the United States could revolutionize the field of eye surgery. American doctors have been operating on patients with low myopia to correct their vision on an experimental basis. Dr. Karas was in Kansas in September to see the progress being made in laser eye surgery. The process involves shaving off a layer of the cornea right across the iris and pupil. "I may switch to the laser if it proves to be efficient, "Dr. Karas said. "But there is no certainty at this time." "The problem is, the safety and the predictability of it are not clear." The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says the procedure will be tested a further three years. If approved on a wide-spread basis, there could be "assembly-line" eye surgery, because the laser unit is easy to operate, Mr. Karas said. For now, Dr. Karas will continue using a method developed in the Soviet Union and used successfully for the past two decades. That method has allowed people like Mr. Gaidhu, whose vision was seriously myopic, and who also had astigmatism, to play sports and to live everyday life without glasses. Mr. Gaidhu's eyes were "like footballs," Dr. Karas said. The thick glasses he wore were very ug1y." For people like Mr. Gaidhu, who come from other countries and provinces to have eye surgery at Dr. Karas' clinic, there is a new lease on life after surgery. Some people even start dressing, differently, more confidently, Dr. Karas said. |