Doctors Perform First Commercial Procedure Using Newest Lasik Technology
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You might say they're doing the wave in Louisiana today, as doctors perform the first commercial procedure using the newest Lasik technology to improve vision. Let's turn to Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Atlanta to tell us more. Good morning, Sanjay.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula. Yes, it's called the way front technology, and it's sort of and enhancement technique, if you will, for Lasik eye surgery. Lasik eye surgery is becoming a very popular procedure, there's no doubt about it. About three million of these procedures done since '95 since it was FDA approved, and a lot of procedures done even before that, off FDA approval, in other countries and things like that, and a really good procedure for people with near sightedness, far sightedness, even some people with a stigmatism, not only changing their vision, but changing their way of life. Having said all of that, there are a lot of people who have been very scared about getting the procedure, concerned about the side effects, that we hear so much about with Lasik, halos around bright lights, night vision, things like that. Well, this new way front technology may try and address some of those concerns by actually enhancing the existing Lasik technology. Let's take a look at this way front technology would actually work. What happens is that a beam of light is shown into the eye and actually detects problems in the eye, and as that beam of light comes back, bounced off the back of the eye, it actually measures errors in the eye by something called an aberrometer. That's a term that ophthalmologists throw around a lot. After that, the information actually creates a customized map of each cornea. So each person gets a customized map of each individual eye to be used before any kind of Lasik eye surgery, and in that information, it actually guides the laser when the reshaping of the cornea occurs. Incidentally, Paula, this is the same sort of technology they use by NASA for some of the corrections of the Hubble space telescope. Now, this has obviously been studied quite a bit before it's actually occurring for the first time today. Some of the clinical trials showed about a 92 percent likelihood of 20/20 vision or better. Compare that to traditional Lasik, about 86 percent. So you can see some improvements there. What I also found very interesting was that people are talking about possibly using this technology to correct previous Lasik side effects, such as the halos, and also maybe to create super-vision, better than 20/20 vision in people who might need that, like pilots and athletes, pretty exciting stuff here.</s>ZAHN: We could use super-vision here. All of us would love to have better than 20/20 vision. How much does it cost?</s>GUPTA: Well, it is going to be a little bit more expensive. Traditionally, Lasik costs anywhere between $1,600 to $2,000. This will probably add a few hundred on per eye. That's a per eye cost. Maybe those numbers will come down as more and more people get this sort of equipment, but that's probably what it is going to cost, at least initially.</s>ZAHN: On to a very important story for American women out there. The American Cancer Society has made some revisions in the number of times that women should have pap smears. Now there is a lot of concern about this, because a pap smear is effective in picking up early cases of cervical cancer.</s>GUPTA: That's right, Paula, and you and I have talked about cervical cancer vaccines, all sorts of different things. The guidelines for pap smears haven't been revised since 1987, about 15 years. So the American Cancer Society actually decided to take a long, hard look at cervical cancer guidelines, and specifically the pap smears, and made some revisions. Let me try and tick them off for you, and then give you a little bit of an idea as to what they were thinking. First of all, women who are not sexually active and young probably don't need routine pap smears. Women who have had hysterectomies for non-cancer-related reasons probably do not need routine pap smears, and women over the age of 70 who have had a history of normal pap smears probably do not need to continue getting their pap smears. The reason being really, Paula, and this is something we've talked about with regards to breast cancer, and regards to all sorts of cancers, is if you do a lot of testing, you get into the situation where you're getting false-positives. Those false positives can lead to possibly more invasive tests, not to mention all the angst surrounding a false positive test, and they're trying to reduce that by sort of playing with the numbers and trying to get the highest sort of bang for the buck in terms of getting good results and getting the cancer detected in those people who are most likely to have it.</s>ZAHN: That's a question I have for you -- is this just simply a cost issue? I mean, most women in America know that many insurance policies cover the cost of a PSA test, and now when you see revisions to the guidelines of these pap smear test, is there a double standard here? Is it a cost issue?</s>GUPTA: Well, i think it is a cost issue to a certain extent, but I wouldn't say that it's solely a cost issue. For anybody that's ever had a positive test that's come back and subsequently found out it was negative, they know the anxiety that surrounds that. You and I talked about PSA tests, they know the fact they might have to get an operation, in this case, a biopsy, maybe even get treatment based on a test that may might have been falsely positive. So it is a cost issue, absolutely. No one, I think, would deny that, but it's also a patient sort of satisfaction issue, in the fact that if you're screening a bunch of people who the yield of cancer is going to be so low, after a while, you saw, you know, it doesn't make sense to screen those people unless there is some good reason to screen them. They have a history or patient preference, something like that.</s>ZAHN: Tell that to someone whose cancer was caught by a pap smear, and I'm they will be pretty animated when they talk about these new guidelines. It's a patient's choice, isn't it, ultimately?</s>GUPTA: It always still is a patient's choice, and if someone is very concerned about that, I think that's going to be something that they can probably still request from their doctor, but it's hard to interject the testimonials of individuals into a public health debate. And you know, you and I could talk about this for hours, and we have, but it is an important issue, and these are what the ACS at least feels will be the best sort of guidelines for the country as a whole.</s>ZAHN: Thank you for the update. Appreciate it.</s>GUPTA: Good seeing you, Paula. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com Lasik Technology>