Dr. Richard Fugo said he’s often asked how he invented the one-of-a-kind laser system that bears his name.
“The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that maybe I didn’t discover this,” the Norristown ophthalmic surgeon said. “Because ideas kept popping into my head, and I didn’t know where they came from. And whenever I hit a stone wall, a door opened.
“You gotta believe there’s something up there that gives you an opportunity to help your fellow man, and you either use it or ignore it and take the easy way out.”
The Fugo Plasma Blade, described by Dr. Fugo, director of the Fugo Eye Institute in Norristown, as a “novel laser system that utilizes principles of physics to perform unique surgeries,” is nearly three decades in the making.
Having obtained a master’s degree and a PhD before earning a medical degree, Dr. Fugo, who once worked as a university professor, said he “always approach(es) things as a PhD researcher rather than a medical doctor.”
When Dr. Fugo started performing surgeries after completing his medical residency, he sought “the best equipment out there” and continually found himself thinking, “This can be done better.
“I’ve been working for going on 30 years now on (answering the question), ‘How do you generate a plasma field and control it and have it be able to cut better?’” he said.
So he set up a wet lab and discovered harmonious plasma, which he named for its rhythmic and gentle wave-like motion.
“A wave guide allows us to create a coating of plasma on a blunt tip that once activated, creates a laser field that cuts sharper than any scalpel in a resistance-free fashion,” Dr. Fugo said. He describes the incision made by the batter-operated system as near perfect and said the blade causes no burning or charring on the incision wall.
Dr. Fugo’s company, MediSURG Research and Management Corporation, produces the system locally in Montgomery and Berks counties. “We manufacture it here and sell it on a worldwide basis,” he said, adding that the research lab is in Norristown and the factory, World Electronics, is located in Wyomissing, Berks County.
Now, 10 years after receiving four USFDA application approvals which are supported by an extensive patent portfolio, Dr. Fugo is working to bring what he said has been called “the light saber of medicine” to third world countries in an attempt to “revolutionize eye care” on an international scale.
“I know people in the industrialized world can afford this device, but I wanted every country to afford it,” Dr. Fugo said. “Africa has almost no modern eye care at all.
“In Nigeria, an estimated 1 in 5 people go blind from cataracts and glaucoma. With our device you could, in effect, wipe out at least 90 percent of that. We can elevate the quality of health care on a worldwide basis. That’s our goal, but it’s a huge financial investment.”
Dr. Fugo said the population in Pakistan, where he recently visited, also is “grossly underserved” in the way of eye care. He said the Fugo Plasma Blade can help address that problem, and “in the short term, not 20 years from now.”
In December Dr. Fugo was invited to Pakistan and India, where he lectured on the Fugo Plasma Blade and its applications and biophysics. “We now have several doctors in Pakistan pioneering the use (of the system). We sent them some units, and they’re doing surgeries and want to present to their colleagues about their experiences and get a larger tier of doctors using it. It’s also becoming widely used in India.”
Dr. Fugo said that MediSURG is allowing doctors in poorer countries to purchase the system at a subsidized cost ranging from $7,000 to $15,000.
“If we were to turn this over to larger company, they would immediately raise the price to $75,000,” he said. “Our smaller company has a smaller overhead, and we’re keeping margins really, really tight, so the use can be more widespread.
“This isn’t a tweak on any technology,” Dr. Fugo said of the Fugo Plasma Blade. “This is a complete shattering, a brand new paradigm of operating. A lot of surgeons really don’t know how to use this device. (To learn), they’ll come to one of the centers or come in and watch a surgery. We also send them videos, and they can become certified at (medical) trade shows.”
Dr. Fugo’s method and the device itself “allows (surgeons) to do things that before would have been considered impossible.” Cutting is “much more controlled,” he said, and “if complications arise, you can reverse complications.”
AVOIDING THE BLADE
Despite the benefits available to patients through the advanced electronic system that Dr. Fugo invented, he stressed the importance of maintaining an overall healthy lifestyle in order to avoid the blade.
Dr. Fugo said he approaches patient treatment from an “eclectic” point-of-view, and “you can’t just believe what you’re told by a drug company — you have to use common sense.
“The eyeball is not just an isolated issue — it’s part of your body — so if you don’t have the right nutrition and you’re eating things that are toxic …, it affects everything in your body,” he said.
According to the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS), age-related macular degeneration is one of the two leading causes (along with diabetic retinopathy) of new cases of vision loss and blindness among adults.
Dr. Fugo described aging as “not only a breakdown based on use, but also a breakdown based on misuse. “Don’t abuse the body,” he said. “Don’t use excessive alcohol, don’t eat (poorly) and don’t smoke. (Do) eat well, use supplements and anti-oxidant therapy, exercise and rest.”
Things to stay away from, Dr. Fugo said, are genetically modified organisms, which “have toxic effects on the human body. We should try to minimize ingesting hormones (in food). And avoid fluoride wherever possible.”
ASRS urges adults to schedule preventative eye examinations so that doctors may detect early signs of diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration long before vision loss begins.
“Routine examinations are critically important,” Dr. Fugo said. “If you’re developing glaucoma, a doctor needs to tell you that. With macular degeneration, you don’t notice it until it’s too late. If we see something in your retina, we can start you on supplementations that can really slow down substantially the development of age-related macular degeneration.
“If we catch (diabetic retinopathy) early enough, we can work on … controlling the diet, minimizing the insulin level in the diet, taking cinnamon to stabilize blood sugar, taking chromium (a trace mineral) and a host of other herbs and micro-nutrients,” Dr. Fugo said. “And when necessary,” he added, “pills and injections. But you want to try to avoid pharmaceutical medications whenever you can. If we can cure the problem by natural remedies, that’s the safest way — but it’s gotta be caught early.”
Fortunately, Dr. Fugo continued, “We can analyze (retinal diseases) as never before …, and we can treat them with a whole entourage of therapies, from exercise, to food, to vitamins, to medicines, to eye drops, to pills.
“Don’t just go and get your glasses changed. Go see the doctor to make sure you don’t have a disease of the eye.”