Wavefront-guided LASEK safe to enhance initial LASIK, PRK for night-vision problems

Paris—Some patients who undergo refractive procedures have a good refractive outcome but still complain of halos and starbursts at night, said Christoph Lohmann, MD, at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons meeting.

Dr. Lohmann, of the Universitäts-Augenklinik, Regensburg, Germany, and colleagues addressed these complaints by performing LASEK on 21 patients all of whom were within 0.5 D of emmetropia and had undergone their initial surgeries several months previously. All had been treated during the initial surgery with an older-generation laser using a small ablation zone. All LASEK re-treatments were done using the WaveLight Concept 500 excimer laser (WaveLight Laser Technologie AG) and the Allegretto Wave analyser (WaveLight Laser Technologie AG). At least a 6.5-mm optical zone was used in all cases.

All patients had a significant improvement in vision, with most patients having 20/20 or 20/15 vision or better. Even after the re-treatment, no patient lost more than one line of visual acuity.

"In all cases, we were able to reduce the visual aberrations. Eighteen of the 21 patients no longer have night-vision problems. The other three patients claim that their vision has improved substantially despite residual problems," Dr. Lohmann reported.