This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
PRK with crosslinking beneficial for keratoconus patients
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
KOLOA, Hawaii — Patients with irregular corneas can benefit from treatment with topographic-guided PRK with crosslinking, according to a speaker here.
“Our goal is to take that football and turn it into a basketball,” Eric D. Donnenfeld, MD, said at Hawaiian Eye 2017. “Topographical ablations have really changed a lot of what we do.”
Eric D. Donnenfeld
However, it is not always possible to get good topographic image to treat with the laser, so Donnenfeld suggests combining the process with crosslinking.
“I like to do two different procedures. I crosslink and then I come back 3 months later to do my topographic ablation,” he said. “As you break through the epithelium you’ll see the corneal stroma will ablate where it’s steeped, and now you can shave off the surface of the cone, flatten the cone and make it more regular.”
When completing this process in patients with keratoconus, refractive treatment parameters should be adjusted and discussed with the patient regarding visual goals.
“We are not taking these patients out of glasses. We are taking them from hard lenses to soft lenses and making their vision better,” Donnenfeld said. “The technology will continue to evolve. It’s a very exciting area in refractive surgery.” – by Rebecca L. Forand
Reference:
Donnenfeld E. Excimer laser treatment of the irregular cornea: Turning footballs into basketballs. Presented at: Hawaiian Eye; Jan. 14-20, 2017; Koloa, Hawaii.
Disclosure: Donnenfeld reports he is a consultant for Alcon, Abbott, Bausch + Lomb, LensGen, TLC Laser Centers, TrueVision, and Zeiss.