American LASIK Pioneer Dies

The June 16 death of Dr. Thomas J. Pangia, a Florida ophthalmologist who died at home at the age of 67 after a battle with cancer, was not widely reported. Yet millions of Americans benefitted from a trip Pangia and several other ophthalmologists took to Russia in 1980 to learn about an innovative surgery known as radial keratotomy.

Pangia and the others were not only the first United States ophthalmologists to learn about the technique that would eventually become LASIK, but were the first to champion its benefits as an effective way to treat myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness) and astigmatism in America.

The first FDA trials of the excimer laser used in LASIK procedures finally began in 1989, and LASIK grew in availability and popularity throughout the 1990s thanks to evolving technology and surgical techniques. Today, tens of thousands of people undergo LASIK annually, and the procedure enjoys a success rate of more than 95 percent.

Dr. Pangia was born in 1944 in Brooklyn, NY, and attended medical school at the University of Rome in Italy. He completed a medical internship at the renowned Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital, and later opened his own practice in Palm Beach, Fla., in 1976.

He continued working in the field of vision correction until his retirement in 2009. Dr. Pangia had continued to serve on the Palm Beach Medical Society board and volunteer with the Sari Asher Center for Integrated Cancer Care.

He is survived by his wife, Isabelle, and two children.

To learn more about LASIK or to find an ophthalmologist near you, please contact The LASIK Directory.