At 5 years, LASIK patients remain happy with results

LONDON — Patients remain happy with their LASIK results 5 years after undergoing the surgery, according to a surgeon speaking here. Additionally, most patients would have the procedure again or would recommend it to a friend, he noted.

Arthur Cummings, MD, and colleagues invited all 1,250 patients who underwent LASIK at their facility in 1999 and 2000 back for a free 5-year follow-up exam. Ninety-seven patients came for the exam and filled out a questionnaire to assess how their current vision compares to the vision before LASIK. It also asked about nighttime vision problems, whether they would have LASIK again and whether they would recommend it to a friend or relative.

Dr. Cummings presented the results of this retrospective study at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons meeting.

Of those who responded to the questionnaire, 6.2% indicated they had worse vision now than before LASIK, and 21% said their night vision was worse than it was before. "But when you ask people if they would do laser again, everyone, bar none, said they would do it again, and 100% said they would refer a friend," Dr. Cummings said.

The refractive outcomes in the clinical exams were "excellent," Dr. Cummings said, noting that patients were happy with their outcomes. Uncorrected visual acuity averaged better than 20/20, spherical equivalent averaged –1.3 D and best corrected visual acuity averaged 1.1, he said.

Dr. Cummings noted that among patients with prolate corneas, there was only one complaint of poor night vision. Complaints of night vision were more common among patients with spherical or oblate corneas, he said.

"The postop corneal profile played an important role in overall visual satisfaction with both day and night vision," he said. Treatment decentration seemed to have little effect on visual satisfaction, as did whether or not the patient was treated with a monovision correction, he said.