You lie with those squiggly “ floater ” things you sometimes get darting around in the turning point of your vision?Scientists have recently been working ona optical maser treatmentto “ zap ” them aside .

Their study testing out this Modern treatment was published this week in the journalJAMA Ophthalmology .

First up , what the blaze are floaters ? Most often they wait like squiggly strands in your peripheral vision although they can appear as black dots or cloud specks . Your average everyday squiggler is make a patch of proteins visit collagen floating in the dethaw gel - corresponding fluid in the back of the eye , which cast shadow on the retina when light enters the center .

Most the time they can be easily ignored but for some people , especially the elderly , these squiggling pain in the neck can be so severe it affects their ability to see . In serious slip , they can be an indication of retinal detachment or a retinal tear . But , once again , everyone gets them and most the time there is no reason to worry . Although surgeries do exist to treat a serious case of floaters , there are presently no medications on the securities industry for this stipulation .

Dr Chirag Shah and Dr Jeffrey Heier of   Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston are the learning ability behind the new discipline to fine - up a non - invasive   solution to this trouble . They say that laser intervention have been used on floaters for year , but there ’s very little scientific lit on its effectiveness . So , they gathered 52 affected role . 36 of these underwent the YAG optical maser vitreolysis while the rest have a placebo treatment which used a super - weak flop laser .

Six months after treatment , 54 pct of the group who received the YAG laser treatment reported important betterment in their symptoms , compared with sham controls ( just 9 percent ) . The discourse also appear to be relatively good with no player report any untoward effects .

Much more oeuvre is ask before this because of a widely uncommitted treatment , however . As the subject area authors take down , this is study only has 52 patients and the come after - up period was not foresighted enough to definitively establish whether the treatment had a lasting effect . Equally ,   the long - term implications are not yet eff .

" Greater self-assurance in these outcome may result from larger substantiative studies of longer duration , " the authors write .