Laser Eye Surgery: Is it Worth it?

The number of people who have problems with their eyesight has been significantly increasing over the years. As such the extent of research in this area has been on the rise and recently there have been significant advancements made in this field.⁸ The idea of getting eye surgery to remove all the hassle of continually updating and wearing contacts or glasses seems to be more and more appealing. When the concept of laser eye surgery first started becoming possible scientists had no real proof of what the long-term effects could be. Now that it has become increasingly popular around the world I was wondering to what extent patients thought it was worth it, what the process is like and what, if any, risky side effects there might be. I myself don’t need to wear eyeglasses or contacts but there is a shockingly large amount of my friends and family who do. I know someone personally who has gotten the surgery a total of three times in one eye and two times in the other and yet still uses glasses to read. I also know someone who must continuously put eye drops in to prevent the dry eye symptom that came after the surgery. These two outcomes made me wonder how effective laser eye surgery really is.

Looking into the Future: My Spine Surgery

I have moderate scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. Fortunately for me, my curve is S-shaped and both curves are balanced. This means that I stand upright, my movement and everyday life is not affected (aside from back pain) and you wouldn’t be able to tell that I have the condition if you saw me out buying a coffee. However others with scoliosis are not so lucky and surgery is an unavoidable path that they must trudge, in order to improve their quality of life.

But what does spine surgery look like? Many surgeries involve fusing the vertebrae of the spine around the area affected, or inserting rods and screws, as seen in Figure 1. Surgeries are highly invasive and can require extensive recovery periods, with original flexibility near impossible to regain in some cases.

Fig 1. University of Utah Hospital, Radiology Department. X-ray of U.S. girl, age 16 years 10 months, with post-operative scoliosis. Front, standing, clothed. 5 February 2010. X-Ray Image. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

3D Printing: Creating Models and Organs

Every year the amount of organ transplants needed increases, but the amount of organs donated has no means of keeping up with this ever increasing number. One solution that has been proposed is bioprinting. Bioprinting is defined as the 3-D printing of biological tissues through layering. For now the goal is to be able to print a few strips at a time to repair organs such as the liver and kidneys. In the future when proper printing methods are devised, the implications of it’s usage knows no bounds.