I also didn't want to say it, but you're right, the figures you estimate, if accurate, are pretty good for this type of procedure. I'm willing to bet there aren't a lot of other operations that have such a high percentage rate.

I don't want to flog this thread, but what you say provoked some other thoughts. OK, we don't know whether the 5% is accurate or what it represents, but I'll just use it here for argument's sake....

If the number (for a serious complication) is really 5%, then I would say that the 95% success rate is actually not very good, as I would compare this to the adverse effect rate that would result from doing nothing for some period. What is the adverse effect of doing nothing for 1 year or 5 years?

Lasik would stand in contrast to something like cardiac pacemakers, where the indications for using the therapy are pretty clear-cut, the success rate is very high, and the consequences of delay are, well, like *death* maybe.

In addition to the *percentage* rate of complications/failure, I'd also be concerned about the population incidence. It is one thing if you have a 50-50 radical therapy for a relatively rare disease where the consequences of doing nothing are very bad. A small number of people are eleigible for the therapy, a small number can suffer the adverse outcomes, and they may well suffer more or die anyway if no action is taken.

With Lasik, the population of eligibles is *huge* and it grows immensely in economic actuality as the purchase price of the procedure is reduced through efficencies and competition between providers.

So, if the eligible/partaking population is huge, and if we find that longer-term negative consequences/outcomes exist that maybe we weren't able to gauge at the 10-year mark, then the rate wouldn't even have to come close to 5 percent to have a negative effect for 10s of thousands, 100s of thousands....millions?