This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Survey finds refractive surgeons more likely to undergo refractive procedures than general population

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

CHICAGO — Refractive surgeons are about four times more likely than the general population to undergo refractive surgery, according to the results of an annual survey of members of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.

The survey found that 23% of refractive surgeons have had refractive procedures performed on themselves, a statistic that represents about four times the market penetration among the general public, according to one of the survey creators.

Richard J. Duffey, MD, who created and compiles the survey of Practice Styles and Preferences along with David V. Leaming, MD, reported the refractive surgery results from 2007 here at the ASCRS meeting.

"The more likely you are to be a refractive surgeon the more likely you are to have refractive surgery on your own eyes," Dr. Duffey said.

With the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about to commence hearings on the safety of LASIK on April 25, Dr. Duffey encouraged ASCRS members to participate in the mid-year survey. This will not only address whether refractive surgeons have had refractive procedures performed on themselves, but will also ask if surgeons' immediate family members have undergone any procedures, he said.

"I think nothing speaks louder than the fact that, not only are these procedures accepted within ophthalmology, but that we are having them done on ourselves and our family members, so I hope you will participate," he said.

Among other highlights from the survey, Dr. Duffey reported that among those who said they perform wavefront-guided ablations, 52% would perform all customized LASIK procedures whenever possible and only 17% of those polled would not perform any custom ablations.

According to Dr. Duffey, the preferred approach for presbyopia is still monovision, with 39% of survey respondents citing it as their first choice, "but notice if you take all of the multifocal IOLs and put them together — at least those the FDA approved in the U.S. — [acceptance] is at this point 36%."

Dr. Duffey said the survey of almost 5,000 ASCRS members yielded a 13% response rate, which is about what they expected based on the previous 10 years of data collection.