The Literature of Refractive Surgery

In 1665, the publication of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London began the use of scientific literature as a means of transmitting information. Since that time, numerous journals have been used to review and process current scientific information. Unfortunately, much in the area of refractive surgery has not been presented in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. A recent example of this is keratotomy for astigmatism using the procedure described by Luis Ruiz, MD, of Bogota, Colombia. Despite many discussions of this procedure at various meetings and incomplete reports of these discussions in non-peer-reviewed literature, only very recently has there been detailed publication of results of this procedure in patients. 1 See also p 1656. In this issue of theArchives, Arffa et al 2 review the results of pediatric epikeratophakia. In contrast to the lack of published information about keratotomy for astigmatism, preliminary results of the work of