LASIK

最近何かと話題のレーシックですが、この単語が略語であることを昨日知りました。

レーザーを使った手術ということで、造語か何かくらいに思っていました。

正式には、


laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis

もしくは、

laser in situ keratomileusis

という、やや難解な医学用語です。（ちなみに、in situはラテン語です。）


When Cindy Duong decided to pitch her contact lenses and have surgery last summer to correct her nearsightedness, she assumed she'd get LASIK. The procedure, in which a tiny flap is cut across the top of the eye's clear, dome-shaped cornea and folded back so a laser can reshape the tissue underneath, is easily the most common type of laser eye surgery, making up 87 percent of all procedures last year. But Duong's doctor said that the cornea in her left eye was too thin to both cut the flap and contour her cornea as LASIK (short for laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) surgery requires. Instead, her doctor suggested she consider a procedure she'd never heard of called photorefractive keratectomy.
(US News & World Report. February 25, 2007.)