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Rare rainbow glare side effect still occurs with latest IntraLase laser
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CHICAGO — Use of the latest IntraLase femtosecond laser does not diminish the occurrence of a rare side effect called rainbow glare, according to a physician who has studied the phenomenon.
"Rainbow glare is caused from the perfectly regular grading pattern of the IntraLASIK pulses in the interface that sets up the constructive interference that splits white light into its component colors and into a number of different bands," Ronald R. Krueger, MD, explained in an interview with Ocular Surgery News after his presentation at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery meeting, here.
Twenty of the 278 patients in the study reported experiencing the mild optical side effect, and most of these patients reported seeing six bands of light. All of these patients had IntraLASIK using a 60 KHz IntraLase femtosecond laser (Advanced Medical Optics).
There does not appear to be an association with refraction, age or gender, Dr. Krueger noted.
Dr. Krueger said he hopes the phenomenon will be eradicated with future femtosecond technologies.
"Newer femtosecond lasers with smaller energies and tighter spacing like the Ziemer laser may not show this phenomenon, and that's a point of future investigation, to see if scattering effects might be different with different femtosecond lasers," he said.