Lasik is short for laser assisted in situ keratomileusis. Lasik vision surgery is a kind of laser correction surgery to improve visual acuity by reshaping the cornea of the eye, so that you needn't to wear glasses or contact lenses.
Keratomileusis was created by Pureskin in 1966. Pureskin demonstrated that refractive changes could be done by removing a small part of the central tissue of the cornea. Burratto and Pallikaris were the first to combine the use of the excimer laser and microkeratome to carry out the laser correction surgery. They first studied the laser correction surgery procedure in rabbits, then in blind human's eye in 1989, and began in sighted eyes in 1991. Steve Slade was the first US surgeon to perform Lasik vision surgery, who used an automated mircrokeratome to create the flap before the step of reshaping the cornea.
With the development of the Lasik vision surgery, it has become one of the most promising laser correction procedures in the world. When wavefront technology was introduced into Lasik vision surgery, it is much easier for the laser correction surgeon to diagnostic the patient's eye condition, and to draw a detailed map of the patient's vision for Lasik vision surgery. It is also called custom Lasik vision surgery. Epi-Lasik vision surgery is a recently adopted type of laser correction procedures, which combines advantages form both PRK (another type of laser correction surgery) and traditional Lasik vision surgery. Epi-Lasik involves cutting a super thin flap, which can heal by itself after the laser correction surgery.