Abstract
Purpose:
To investigate the efficacy and safety of LASIK for the correction of anisometropic amblyopia in adult patients.
Methods:
A retrospective, case series. From a random sample of 1500 patients from the Cornea and Refractive service, we found 12 amblyopic adult patients that underwent monocular LASIK for anisometropia. We evaluated the preoperative and postoperative refractive error, spherical equivalent (SE), uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) and best corrected visual acuity (BCVA). Snellen visual acuity measurements were converted to LogMAR for statistical purposes.
Results:
The mean age was 31.92 (±12.13) years. The average preoperative SE in the treated eyes was -3.49 (±3.24), the average SE of the untreated eye was 0.25(±0.30). Preoperative UCVA was 1.12 (±0.3) and average preoperative BCVA was 0.31 (±0.1). All patients had LASIK with an average follow-up time of 19.1(1-74) months. The average postoperative SE decreased to -0.28 (±0.48). Five patients (42%) gained 1 line of vision, 1 (8%) patient gained 2 lines of vision, 1 (8%) patient gained 3 lines of vision and the rest (42%) remained unchanged compared to preoperative BCVA. Statistically significant differences were observed between the preoperative UCVA [1.12 (±0.3)] with the postoperative UCVA [0.27 (±0.1)](p<0.001, paired T-Test) and between the postoperative BCVA [0.23 (±0.12)] with the preoperative BCVA [0.31 (±0.1)] (p=0.02, , paired T-Test). There were no complications related to the surgical procedures.
Conclusions:
Monocular refractive surgery in adult patients with anisometropic amblyopia is a safe and effective therapeutic option that offers a satisfactory visual outcome, preserving or even improving the preoperative BCVA.
Keywords: 678 refractive surgery •
417 amblyopia •
683 refractive surgery: LASIK