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LASIK shows long-term efficacy for treating patients with high myopia
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Despite a small myopic regression that diminishes with time, LASIK shows long-term efficacy for correcting myopia up to 10 D, according to a study by researchers in Spain. At 10 years follow-up, more than half of eyes showed an increase in best corrected visual acuity, and none had developed ectasia, the study authors noted.
 Jorge L. Alió |
Ocular Surgery News Europe/Asia-Pacific Edition Chairman of the Editorial Board Jorge L. Alió, MD, PhD, and colleagues evaluated long-term outcomes of myopic LASIK on 97 eyes of 70 patients. All cases had a preoperative spherical equivalent of up to –10 D.
Specifically, preoperative sphere averaged –6.53 D, preoperative cylinder averaged –1.44 D and preoperative spherical equivalent averaged –7.27 D, according to the study.
In all cases, surgeons performed LASIK using the Visx Star S4 excimer laser (Advanced Medical Optics) and the Automated Corneal Shaper microkeratome (Chiron Vision).
Follow-up evaluations were conducted at 3 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years and 10 years after surgery.
At 10 years postop, 71 eyes (73%) were within 1 D of emmetropia, and 89 eyes (92%) were within 2 D, according to the study.
During follow-up, 20 eyes (21%) had undergone re-treatments. Specifically, surgeons performed re-treatments for undercorrection in eight eyes of eight patients, for regression in three eyes of three patients, for both overcorrection and regression in three eyes of two patients, for overcorrection in four eyes of four patients and for mixed astigmatism in two eyes of one patient, according to the study.
Average spherical equivalent diminished slightly by 10 years postop, with an annual mean myopic regression of –0.12 D. However, at 10 years follow-up, 54 of the 97 eyes (56%) showed increased best corrected visual acuity, the authors noted.
"No eye developed corneal ectasia in the long-term, and only three eyes lost more than 2 lines of [BCVA] because of complications that were not attributable to the LASIK procedure," they said.
The study is published in the January edition of American Journal of Ophthalmology.