Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose: To investigate the risk factors of diffuse lamellar keratitis (DLK) and to evaluate the effect of DLK on visual acuity after LASIK. Methods: 144 eyes of 75 patients who underwent LASIK with Visx S4(VISX Inc., Santa Clara, CA) and M2(Moria, Antony, France) and who were followed at least six month were included. The effect of various factors –age, sex, previous dry eye, the history of contact lens wearing, intraoperative flap–lifted time, intraoperative bleeding, postoperative immediate steroid instillation– was evaluated in DLK and non–DLK group. Postoperative log MAR visual acuities and log contrast sensitivity(CS) using the VCTS®6500(Vistech Consultants, Inc., Dayton, OH) were compared with those of pre–operation in DLK and non–DLK group at 3, 6 months after LASIK. Results: Only intraoperative bleeding was significantly related to the development of DLK(p=0.001). There was no difference of log MAR visual acuities between in DLK and non–DLK group till 6 months. However, the CS significantly decreased in 3, 6, 12 cycle/degree compared with that of pre–operation((p=0.025, p=0.011, p=0.027) in DLK group, whereas the CS significantly increased in 6 and 12 cycle/degree in non–DLK group (p=0.032, p=0.016) at six months. Conclusions: DLK seemed to be strongly associated with intraoperative bleeding and postoperative decrease of contrast sensitivity.
Keywords: refractive surgery: LASIK • refractive surgery: optical quality • keratitis