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PRK does not affect ocular drug barrier, study finds

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KFARSAVA, Israel — The eye’s ability to absorb topical medications is not affected by photorefractive keratectomy at 4 weeks after the surgery, according to a study. Patients with higher myopia preoperatively and thinner corneas showed a trend toward greater drug penetration, the study found, but the effect of the surgery was not statistically significant.

Arie Nemet and Yair Morad, MD, measured the pupillary diameters of 28 patients who had undergone PRK in one eye 4 weeks earlier. The researchers used an infrared pupillometer to measure pupillary diameters at 0, 15 and 30 minutes after 0.1% tropicamide instillation. The patients’ non-PRK fellow eyes served as controls.

There was no statistically significant difference between PRK eyes and control eyes in the percentage of pupillary dilation. A trend toward greater dilation was seen in patients whose initial myopia was more than –6 D and whose corneas were thinner than 540 µm.

The study is published in the December issue of Ophthalmologica.