Lasik Patients Can View 3D Just Fine, Prominent Ophthalmologist Says

"I don’t see any reason why” a person who has undergone successful Lasik surgery or the more recently developed Lasek procedure would have any trouble viewing 3D, the ophthalmologist, Hampson Sisler, said. Post-Lasik, “it’s a normal state to be able to see in 3D, and there’s no reason why anyone can’t see a 3D movie as well as anything they can see in normal, everyday life,” he said. In 49 years of practice as an ophthalmological surgeon, Sisler has never faced an ethics probe and has never been sued by a patient, he said. He’s currently chairman of the ethics committee at New York Downtown Hospital in Manhattan.

Though it’s true that some Lasik patients suffer postoperative “reflectivity” problems that may hamper their ability at first to view 3D, that condition “doesn’t go on forever,” and there are anti-reflectivity treatments that can help, Sisler said. Dry eye is another common postoperative problem because a Lasik incision can interfere with an eye’s tear duct, but drops can treat the condition and it usually doesn’t hamper one’s vision, Sisler said.

Sisler thinks “there are more people out there who can’t appreciate 3D movies than you may realize,” but not because of Lasik surgery, he said. “Unfortunately, people with one eye can’t view 3D,” he said. “They have a kind of 3D, an adaptive 3D, which by shifting the eye back and forth, you get a certain 3D effect. But the actual stereopsis that’s needed for true 3D, unfortunately, we can’t give you, so a 3D movie probably won’t register with you."

Many more people have two healthy eyes, but the eyes “don’t work together, and that’s not so uncommon either,” Sisler said. They, too, would have problems viewing 3D, he said. Their eyes “don’t align well, and the brain doesn’t have the capacity to fuse the images,” he said. “It’s not a large percentage, but maybe 5 or 6 percent of the population who has this problem. They will never appreciate 3D."

Sisler said he’s unfazed the Food and Drug Administration said in October it’s funding a study through 2012 gauging the quality of life of patients who have undergone Lasik surgery. Such studies are “very nice,” but they're “gilding the lily,” he said. “What’s the difference between wearing glasses and not wearing glasses as far as quality of life is concerned?” Post-Lasik, “people who were extremely nearsighted, who couldn’t focus on a page beyond more than a couple of inches from their eyes without a corrective lens, these people tell me they're ecstatic about being able to get up in the middle of the night and go to the john without putting their glasses on,” Sisler said. “Those are the most extreme cases. People with more of the garden variety of myopia, their quality of life doesn’t really change after Lasik."

Sisler also pooh-poohed statements Sony attributed to ophthalmologists that nearsightedness has skyrocketed among adults since the 1970s because too many people have watched TV sitting too close to the screen and haven’t properly exercised their eyes. “I would guess that came from optometrists, because that sounds very unscientific,” Sisler said. “Whether you watched TV sitting too close to the screen, read in poor light your whole childhood or you never cracked a book makes no difference whatsoever as far as what we know today. It’s an old wive’s tale, so forget it."

Sisler does put some stock in Sony’s research finding that viewing 3D actually may benefit eye health, he said. Viewing 3D will give people “an extreme case of stereopsis, which is not going to hurt them,” Sisler said. If the brain “learns to fuse the two images together and make 3D, it may make things better in normal life,” he said. “So I would say if anything, it would be a positive thing. But negative? Certainly it’s not negative."

We queried Sony for more information on its 3D ophthalmology research, which Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow cited in a Feb. 16 briefing with reporters. Sony is studying whether special 3D glasses or software solutions could help people who have trouble viewing 3D because they have had Lasik surgery, Glasgow said then, without specifying who told Sony about the Lasik problems and why. “Know that we have had industry and medical groups updating Sony on many issues and angles regarding 3D, so this is not just Stan’s thought, but what was presented to him and management earlier this year,” Sony spokesman John Dolak told us in an e-mail last week. “We are trying to track down who and what was presented.”