Vinicius Coral Ghanem, MD, awarded Waring Medal

NEW YORK — George O. Waring III, MD, FACS, FRCOphth, presented the 2008-2009 Waring Medal to Vinicius Coral Ghanem, MD, at OSN New York 2009.

Dr. Ghanem, from Sadalla Amin Ghanem Eye Hospital in Joinville, Brazil, was awarded the medal for his work comparing PRK and butterfly LASEK, or BLASEK.

Dr. Ghanem described a prospective, randomized, double-masked study of 102 eyes of 51 patients. He performed PRK in one eye and BLASEK in the other eye. Mean age of patients was 28.06 years. Myopia ranged from –1.5 D to –5.5 D, with negative astigmatism up to –1.5 D and spherical anisometropia of 1.5 D or less.

At 1 year postop, 98.04% of PRK eyes and 96.08% of BLASEK eyes achieved uncorrected visual acuity of 20/20. Also at 1 year postop, 100% of PRK eyes and 99% of BLASEK eyes had best corrected visual acuity of 20/20.

No eyes needed re-treatment.

Surgical time needed for PRK was approximately 5 minutes, whereas for BLASEK, approximately 10 minutes was needed for the procedure. Corneal re-epithelization occurred within 4 to 5 days in PRK eyes and within 4 to 6 days in BLASEK eyes; eight BLASEK eyes took 6 days.

On a scale from 0 to 10 (10 being "most satisfied"), after 2 years, overall patient satisfaction was 9.82 for PRK eyes and 9.80 for BLASEK eyes. Both procedures were similar in measures of postoperative pain, reduced tear production, reduced ocular pressure and haze incidence. Major differences included only the procedure duration and epithelial healing, in which PRK held an advantage.

OSN New York 2010 will be held November 19-21, 2010 at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers in New York City. Learn more at OSNNY.com.