Next Generation Refractive Procedures Rely on Excimers

Dating back nearly three decades, laser refractive surgery for vision correction represents a suite of well‐established and increasingly popular elective medical procedures. For instance, in the US, where elective procedures are more common than in other countries, laser refractive surgery today is the single most popular elective “surgical” procedure. With a range of different procedures and variants now available, the key trends in vision correction surgery involve personalized treatments that provide subtle wavefront corrections for maximum patient benefit, as well as faster lasers to reduce procedure times and minimize patient discomfort. In this article, we briefly review the status of the main procedure types. We also look at the important excimer laser parameters that impact this application and see how the reality and perception of the excimer have evolved to the benefit of both the ophthalmic surgeon and the patient.