Laser oculus surgery has enabled 1000000s of people to throw away their spectacless. Now several medical engineering companies are trusting that optical masers aimed at the pess will let 1000000s to take their socks off. even in public.

The mark is toenail fungus — an infection in an estimated 10 per centum of American grownups. or 23 million people — that causes toenails to go thick. xanthous and fetid.

If these optical masers. which late completed little clinical tests. work. they will stand for a new manner to handle nail infection by selectively enlightening Fungis while go forthing the nail and environing tissue integral.

Right now. there is no certain remedy. The Fungi are so stalwart that popular fungicidal pills. which carry a little hazard of liver harm. are wholly successful less than half of the clip. And a prescription lacquer. painted on the toenails daily for 48 hebdomads. has a complete remedy rate of less than 10 per centum.

Pharmaceutical giants like Schering-Plough and Novartis are developing new lacquers. pills and unctions to conflict the Fungi. But some chiropodists and patients are traping their hopes on the experimental optical maser interventions.

Nomir Medical Technologies in Waltham. Mass. . is developing a optical maser called Noveon for diseases like antibiotic-resistant staph infections every bit good as nail afflictions.

Noveon is a type of optical maser already normally used by physicians for interventions like cataract surgery. dental work and even hair remotion. Noveon beams two different wavelengths of near-infrared visible radiation at toenails to selectively take purpose at and kill Fungis.

After four interventions with Noveon. about half of the 39 toenails tested no longer had active nail infections. harmonizing to the consequences of a clinical test that the company presented this month at a national dermatology meeting. Six months after the initial intervention. about 76 per centum of the voluntaries had clear nail growing. the survey reported.

“We will be able to make people who have heretofore stayed away from intervention because of the toxicity or the costs or other grounds. ” said Richard F. Burtt. Nomir’s main executive.

Mr. Burtt said the company was fixing to subject the information to the Food and Drug Administration. trusting to have clearance to market Noveon by this autumn. The bureau has already cleared Noveon for usage on the tegument and in rhinal transitions. But the company is non taking orders for or administering the optical maser for nails until it receives specific permission to make so. Mr. Burtt said.

Another company developing a optical maser. PathoLase. is so eager to acquire a piece of the billion-dollar-plus market for fungicidal nail interventions that it has non waited for federal permission to get down marketing its device. the PinPointe Footlaser. for usage on toenail fungus. About 70 chiropodists in 21 provinces already offer PinPointe. harmonizing to PathoLase. The intervention. which is non covered by wellness insurance. costs $ 1. 000 or more.

The F. D. A. requires makers to wait for federal clearance before marketing a medical device for specific utilizations. But PathoLase appears to hold jumped the gun in the war on spores.

Last hebdomad. a intelligence broadcast by a Fox affiliate in Manhattan featured PinPointe as the latest thing for nail upsets. Dr. Stuart J. Mogul. a chiropodist in Manhattan who demonstrated the optical maser during the broadcast. said he had late treated four patients with PinPointe at a cost of $ 1. 200 each. He said it was excessively shortly to state whether the intervention had worked.

“I explain to patients that the lone hazard is fiscal. ” Dr. Mogul said in an interview last hebdomad.

He added that representatives of PathoLase had told him that the F. D. A. had approved the optical maser as being safe.

Up until Tuesday. PinPointe’s Web site promoted the toenail optical maser as “F. D. A. cleared” and included an indorsement from a chiropodist in California stating he had used the device for six months on 225 patients.

Because the F. D. A. cleared the device in 2001 for usage in dental medicine. physicians are free to utilize it for other intents. John Strisower. the main executive of PathoLase. said in an interview on Monday.

Technically. the F. D. A. does non modulate the pattern of medical specialty. so physicians are so able to utilize sanctioned drugs and devices for unapproved intents when they deem it appropriate.