Dr Kerryn Phelps, Health Editor, Channel 9 'Today'

MOORE: Ten years on, how much has changed?

PHELPS: Well, a great deal has changed. You might remember years ago there was a report of people being able to miraculously restore their good vision with a process called Radial Keratotomy, which is using a diamond blade and makes cuts into the cornea, and it means they didn't have to wear their glasses again. Well, of course, things have moved on since then, and we now have laser surgery, and we see Chris Rodgers here, preparing for that sort of surgery here today. This involves the use of lasers to actually resurface the cornea, to change the shape of the front part of the eye. Now, what it involves is a very fine blade, an oscillating blade, and you lift up the front of the cornea, and when you lift up the cornea, underneath, they use the laser which actually vaporises some of the cells of the cornea, to reshape it. Then, the flap of the cornea goes back down, and that actually means that there is less discomfort later on, because the flap of the cornea has been replaced. But there is even more technology that's available now, and this machine we are seeing here is called the LADARVision, and the LADARVision uses NASA technology. Now, you know, for example, they use 'Lock' and 'Track' Devices, now 'Lock' and 'Track' Devices means that what you can do is lock on to the eyeball and then it registers four thousand times a second, and then the machine actually responds in milliseconds to any movement in the eye. So, the plan for the eye is set by a computer, and then you're able to follow the eyeball, and the laser follows the eyeball so that it doesn't make any mistakes.

MOORE: Kerryn, what are the risks? I mean, do you always come up trumps? Can you come out with worse eyesight than you went in?

PHELPS: You shouldn't come out with worse eyesight. I mean, there are, obviously, sometimes things go very wrong, and you can get adverse events, like an infection. But usually, if there is going to be a problem it will be that there isn't ideal vision at the end, and you maybe need to go back, sometime later, or your vision changes later on, and you might need to go back and have the procedure done again.

MOORE: So, it doesn't arrest eyesight deterioration, but you can have repeat operations?

PHELPS: You can have repeat operations, and you can fine tune it later on. Obviously, people don't want to have to go back and do that, but, in some cases, that might be necessary. Because laser is used for other things other than resurfacing the cornea, and, particularly, for people with diabetes and the damage that diabetes can do to eyesight. And laser is being used extensively to be able to fix that, so we are seeing, really, a whole new world of technology for eye surgery.

MOORE: OK . Thank you very much for sharing that with us.

PHELPS: Thank you, Ali.

Ends