Aa
Handheld Lasers a Public Health Risk
Handheld Lasers a Public Health Risk
Pam Harrison
Aug 26, 2013
TORONTO, Ontario — Experts predict that, if left unregulated, handheld lasers purchased online could cause an epidemic of ocular injuries.
"These lasers are available, they are sold as toys, they're not expensive. Adolescents buy them and play with them," Fernando Arevalo, MD, professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in Baltimore, told Medscape Medical News. He is also affiliated with the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Arevalo presented a case series of various maculopathies caused by high-powered handheld lasers here at the 31st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Retina Specialists.
Fourteen patients, with a mean age of 17 years, presented to the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital because of laser exposure. They underwent a full ophthalmic evaluation, including fundus photography, spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, and fluorescein angiography.
Clinical findings revealed a full-thickness macular hole in 4 eyes, an outer retinal disruption in 1 eye, an epiretinal membrane in 1 eye, a schisis-like cavity in 1 eye, and intraocular hemorrhage in 7 eyes, 5 with subhyaloid hemorrhage and 2 with a subinternal limiting membrane hemorrhage.
"The initial best-corrected visual acuity had a mean of 20/290, and the final best-corrected visual acuity in all cases had a mean of 20/40," Dr. Arevalo reported. In fact, all patients had some improvement in visual acuity, he added.
However, 71% of the patients (10 eyes) required surgical intervention to achieve improvement in visual acuity. The remaining 29% (4 eyes) improved with observation alone.
Surgeons performed Nd:YAG hyaloidotomy on the 5 eyes with subhyaloid hemorrhage and pars plana vitrectomy with or without tamponade on the other 5 eyes.
"About 2 years ago, we started seeing these injuries every few weeks or so in young patients who would present to the emergency room with a lesion in the retina," Dr. Arevalo told Medscape Medical News.
At first, the Saudi team thought the injuries were due to a laser pointer much like the ones physicians use when lecturing. However, it turned out that they were caused by handheld lasers with power of up to 1200 mW, which is "much higher than other class 4 lasers," Dr. Arevalo explained. "Because of the power, it causes a lot of damage, even with a very brief exposure."
The laser also has a wavelength of 450 nanometers. Because it is blue, it is absorbed into the central field pigment where it can burn the retina.
We hope this will lead to changes in the regulation of handheld laser sales.
"It's very hard to ban Internet sales," Dr. Arevalo pointed out. However, in an effort to curtail potential injuries from handheld lasers, the group at King Khaled has shared its findings with hospital administrators.
The hospital, in turn, is close to the Minister of Health in Saudi Arabia. "We hope this will lead to changes in the regulation of handheld laser sales," Dr. Arevalo said.
Amy Schefler, MD, from Retina Consultants of Houston, who is clinical assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Texas, said that she has not seen any injuries with the blue laser, but has seen similar injuries from the YAG laser used for hair removal.
She agrees with Dr. Arevalo that it's tough to regulate Internet sales. "I'm no expert in government regulation of Internet purchases, but it's obviously challenging," Dr. Schefler said. "Probably education is the most effective thing."
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/810009
Pam Harrison
Aug 26, 2013
TORONTO, Ontario — Experts predict that, if left unregulated, handheld lasers purchased online could cause an epidemic of ocular injuries.
"These lasers are available, they are sold as toys, they're not expensive. Adolescents buy them and play with them," Fernando Arevalo, MD, professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in Baltimore, told Medscape Medical News. He is also affiliated with the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Arevalo presented a case series of various maculopathies caused by high-powered handheld lasers here at the 31st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Retina Specialists.
Fourteen patients, with a mean age of 17 years, presented to the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital because of laser exposure. They underwent a full ophthalmic evaluation, including fundus photography, spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, and fluorescein angiography.
Clinical findings revealed a full-thickness macular hole in 4 eyes, an outer retinal disruption in 1 eye, an epiretinal membrane in 1 eye, a schisis-like cavity in 1 eye, and intraocular hemorrhage in 7 eyes, 5 with subhyaloid hemorrhage and 2 with a subinternal limiting membrane hemorrhage.
"The initial best-corrected visual acuity had a mean of 20/290, and the final best-corrected visual acuity in all cases had a mean of 20/40," Dr. Arevalo reported. In fact, all patients had some improvement in visual acuity, he added.
However, 71% of the patients (10 eyes) required surgical intervention to achieve improvement in visual acuity. The remaining 29% (4 eyes) improved with observation alone.
Surgeons performed Nd:YAG hyaloidotomy on the 5 eyes with subhyaloid hemorrhage and pars plana vitrectomy with or without tamponade on the other 5 eyes.
"About 2 years ago, we started seeing these injuries every few weeks or so in young patients who would present to the emergency room with a lesion in the retina," Dr. Arevalo told Medscape Medical News.
At first, the Saudi team thought the injuries were due to a laser pointer much like the ones physicians use when lecturing. However, it turned out that they were caused by handheld lasers with power of up to 1200 mW, which is "much higher than other class 4 lasers," Dr. Arevalo explained. "Because of the power, it causes a lot of damage, even with a very brief exposure."
The laser also has a wavelength of 450 nanometers. Because it is blue, it is absorbed into the central field pigment where it can burn the retina.
We hope this will lead to changes in the regulation of handheld laser sales.
"It's very hard to ban Internet sales," Dr. Arevalo pointed out. However, in an effort to curtail potential injuries from handheld lasers, the group at King Khaled has shared its findings with hospital administrators.
The hospital, in turn, is close to the Minister of Health in Saudi Arabia. "We hope this will lead to changes in the regulation of handheld laser sales," Dr. Arevalo said.
Amy Schefler, MD, from Retina Consultants of Houston, who is clinical assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Texas, said that she has not seen any injuries with the blue laser, but has seen similar injuries from the YAG laser used for hair removal.
She agrees with Dr. Arevalo that it's tough to regulate Internet sales. "I'm no expert in government regulation of Internet purchases, but it's obviously challenging," Dr. Schefler said. "Probably education is the most effective thing."
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/810009
Also wasnt there issues with people aiming these things at planes and caused alot of issues? You can get these little pointer lasers just about anywhere. And they are very cheap.
Weren't there warnings about these issued quite a few years ago? For pretty much the same sort of reasons? If its the same thing, I can't believe they are still so easily attainable. I can see using them for the kinds of things R talks about, but not just as toys.
Probably so, we call them “Pointer Lasers”. Most of them are about the size of an Ink Pen. I use mine to point out issues at work to avoid having to constantly going up in Lifts. I’ve seen people use them to play with their Cats and Dogs. They will try to catch the beam. I think I bought mine at Radio Shack. I work with several types of Lasers and all of them have labels warning against looking into them.
Wow, am I ever behind the times!!! I didn't even realize that these things were sold as "toys"... who'da thunk something like this would be legal for kids to buy and play with?
I dont remember where I was the other day, I think it was walmart that sold these in the toy section for pets. Is this one of what they are talking about I wonder.
You must join this user group in order to participate in this discussion.
You are reading content posted in the Current Events . . . Group
A list of national and international resources and hotlines to help connect you to needed health and medical services.
Herpes sores blister, then burst, scab and heal.
Herpes spreads by oral, vaginal and anal sex.
STIs are the most common cause of genital sores.
Condoms are the most effective way to prevent HIV and STDs.
PrEP is used by people with high risk to prevent HIV infection.
