The leading topic of this particular paper is dedicated to available surgical options for refractive eye disorders treatment including surgery of cornea and intraocular surgery. Corneal Surgery includes laser refractive surgery - LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis), FemtoLASIK (Femtosecond laser-assisted LASIK), PRK (Photorefractive keratectomy). This article describes relevant princi...

BACKGROUND The United States officially entered a recession in December 2007, and it officially exited the recession in December 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Since the economy may affect not only the volume of excimer laser refractive surgery, but also the clinical characteristics of patients undergoing surgery, our goal was to compare the characteristics of pati...

CASE REPORT We report the case of a 34 year-old man with progressive loss of visual acuity in his left eye, who was diagnosed with pigmentary glaucoma with an intraocular pressure of 32mmHg. Eight years previously, the patient had undergone refractive surgery (LASIK). Hypotensive treatment led to a significant refractive change accompanied by flattening of the corneal curvature. DISCUSSION We...

MAY 2011 CATARACT & REFRACTIVE SURGERY TODAY 45 A cornerstone of successful laser vision correction is the accurate centration of the ablation zone over the entrance pupil. Symptoms of poor visual acuity, poor quality of vision, loss of contrast sensitivity, halos/glare/starbursts, and multiple images (monocular polyopia) have all been reported after both PRK and LASIK in which a significant de...

FACTOR S INFLUENCING MONOVI SI ON’S SUCCE SS Patients’ Expectations The goal of monovision is to increase patients’ functional vision for daily tasks without the aid of glasses. This endpoint, however, does not preclude a person’s ability to use glasses for tasks requiring clear binocular distance vision (ie, night driving) or sharp binocular near vision (ie, prolonged reading). Although some p...

As refractive surgeons, it is safe to say we have all had our share of challenging cases. For this issue, Cataract & Refractive Surgery Today and I asked several editorial board members and other top surgeons to address a wide variety of interesting refractive complications, including suction break with the Intralase FS Laser (Intralase Corp., Irvine, CA), a lost LASIK flap, and the implantatio...

Several laser and non-laser refractive surgical procedures have been used to modify the shape of the cornea and correct myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, and presbyopia. Introduction of the excimer laser to reshape the cornea has resulted in remarkable developments in the correction of these refractive errors. Combined with other advanced ophthalmological instruments, laser refractive eye surgery...

PURPOSE To assess the impact of refractive surgery on quality of life using the National Eye Institute Refractive Error Quality of Life instrument (NEI-RQL) and to evaluate the responsiveness of our Portuguese version of the NEI-RQL instrument to surgical correction of refractive error. METHODS In this prospective study, the NEI-RQL, a 42-item questionnaire with 13 scales, was self-administer...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Topography-guided laser refractive surgery regularizes the front corneal surface irregularities to achieve the desired refractive outcome. This is particularly applicable in highly aberrated corneas, where wavefront aberrometry is often not possible. This article aims to review the recently published results of topography-guided ablations in normal regular corneas, highly aber...

Refractive errors are some of the most common ophthalmic abnormalities world-wide and are associated with significant morbidity. Tremendous advances in treating refractive errors have occurred over the past 20 years. The arrival of the excimer laser has allowed a level of accuracy in modifying the cornea that was unattainable before. Although refractive surgery is generally safe and effective, ...