Eyeworld Daily News

EW SHOW DAILY 20 Friday, April 17, 2015 A t a World Cornea Con- gress free paper session on Thursday afternoon, the topic of focus was refractive surgery and new technologies. Mohamed Shafik, MD, PhD, Alexandria, Egypt, highlighted man- agement of highly aberrated corneas using a high definition aberrometer. The management of an irregular cor- nea has been always a real challenge in daily practice, he said. Iatrogenic and primary are the two big catego- ries that physicians face. Attempts to laser treat in the past were using either topo-guided ablation or wavefront-guided ablation, he said. Dr. Shafik's objective was to evaluate the visual, refractive, contrast sensitivity, and aberromet- ric outcomes in a group of highly aberrated corneas undergoing wave- front-guided LVC surgery using the iDesign high definition aberrometer and the VISX STAR S4 IR excimer laser platform (both from Abbott Medical Optics, Abbott Park, Ill.). He looked at 22 eyes of 18 patients who had highly irregular corneas. He concluded that this new sys- tem can read almost every irregular cornea and allows for measuring eyes that were not captured with previous aberrometers. The higher iris registration capture rate allows the surgeon to center the ablation in the correct place. Emmetropia can be targeted in these difficult cases to provide useful vision for highly aberrated eyes, he said. Francis W. Price Jr., MD, Indianapolis, spoke on a longitu- dinal survey study of LASIK and contact lens users that he has been working on with the purpose of evaluating patient satisfaction and concerns over a 2-year period in the 2 groups. So far, there are 23 total participating sites, he said, with 3 outside the U.S. and 20 in the U.S. The study also aims to help establish a new benchmark by comparing LASIK with a popular alternative rather than a hypotheti- cal "perfect" eye, Dr. Price said. "We think there's been a movement to compare LASIK to a perfect eye that by Ellen Stodola EyeWorld Staff Writer contact lenses, which are a popular alternative. Both entail some risk. He also added that better dry eye treatments are needed for all types of vision correction. EW Editors' note: Drs. Shafik and Price have no related financial interests. probably doesn't exist," he said. This is one of the reasons that the study is important. The study is designed as a pro- spective multicenter survey study that is Internet-based with self-re- ported outcomes. There are 2 arms of the study: LASIK and contact lenses. The LASIK group is evaluated preoperatively and 1, 2, and 3 years postoperatively. Meanwhile, the contact lenses group is evaluated at baseline and 1, 2, and 3 years later. Through the study, Dr. Price said that it has been shown that the satisfaction rate is high with both LASIK and contact lens users. Results indicated that 82% of patients were completely satisfied with LASIK while 57% were completely satisfied with contact lenses. LASIK seems to result in fewer vision problems with night driving, he said, both for former contact lens wearers and former spectacle wear- ers. Additionally, dry eye complaints were common with LASIK, contact lenses, and for those wearing glasses. Glasses wearers were more likely to report increased dry eye after LASIK. In conclusion, Dr. Price said that the study sets an appropriate bench- mark for LASIK by comparing it with Free paper session highlights refractive surgery and new technologies Dr. Shafik presents on management of highly aberrated corneas using a high definition aberrometer. " As we all know, the management of irregular corneas has always been a challenge in our everyday practice as refractive surgeons. " –Mohamed Shafik, MD, PhD

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