In the News: LASIK

Wavefront Guided LASIK Produces Excellent Vision and Contrast

Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery: July 2009

Clinical researchers at the University of Waterloo School of Optometry reported on a study of Wavefront LASIK evaluating visual acuity and contrast sensitivity. The researchers found that 84% of patients achieved 20/20 vision or better with Wavefront LASIK vision correction and reported statistically significant improvement of contrast sensitivity. The improvement in contrast sensitivity is thought to translate into better overall vision performance in dim illumination and under poor lighting conditions.

Monovision LASIK Success

Current Opinions in Ophthalmology: June 2009

Researchers reported on factors that can effect the success and patient satisfaction with monovision LASIK including age, sex, ocular dominance, amount of monovision correction and degree of myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism and concluded that overall the most successful group are nearsighted women however the study concluded that monovision LASIK is quite suitable for farsighted patients as well.

Pilots Deploy Laser Sharp Vision

Ophthalmology Times: June 2009

According to an article by Lt. Col. Charles D. Reilly, M.D., Chief of Cornea/External Disease & Refractive Surgery at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, Laser Eye Surgery for correcting common refractive eye problems such as nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism has had “a remarkable record of safety and efficacy” among soldiers engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Dr. Reilly has served as the Chief of the Warfighter Refractive Surgery center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and as a Refractive Surgery Consultant to the Air Force Surgeon General.

Dr. Reilly relayed, “As the Consultant for Refractive Surgery in the Air Force, I was interested primarily in what kinds of complications we were seeing in the patients on whom we performed refractive surgery, both before and after we get them deployed.” More that 15,000 members of the armed forces have LASIK or PRK each year. The most common complication was deploying too soon after surgery-often they were back in the active theater within 2 weeks of surgery. Dr. Reilly commented that trying to put your post operative “drops in your eyes while dodging bullets from the enemy is just not a good idea”. Overall the complication rate was pretty unremarkable with more military personnel coming back home with basketball injuries than refractive surgery complications. Even with a number of troops suffering significant eye trauma in the theaters, there were no flap dislocations in LASIK patients. He cautioned that this data was primarily for Air Force personnel and it is possible that the complication rate might have been higher among ground troops. The Army recently released a policy stating that personnel cannot deploy for 90 days following PRK, which Dr. Reilly feels, is a prudent course.

Joint LASIK Study Task Force

LASIK World Literature Review: Quality of Life and Patient Satisfaction.

Ophthalmology: April 2009

In March 2008 a team of Refractive Surgeons affiliated with the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, and researchers under the guidance of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) performed a meta-analysis of 3,000 peer reviewed articles published over 10 years. Their analysis found a 95.4% patient satisfaction rate among LASIK patients worldwide.

A new study finds contact lens (CL) users who chose to have LASIK were more satisfied with their vision a year after the surgery, and even more satisfied after two and even three years, according to Francis Price Jr., MD, and others with the Cornea Research Foundation of America. The study is the first to directly compare satisfaction rates of CL wearers (n=819) with those who opt for LASIK (n=694). Some key findings were: The proportion expressing strong satisfaction with CLs decreased from 63% at the start of the study to 54% at year three. Conversely, 88% of former CL users and 77% of former spectacle users reported being strongly satisfied with LASIK at year three, consistent with the high satisfaction levels at years one and two.