Posters

Quality of life patient questionnaire after refractive lenticule extraction (ReLEx) SMILE: comparison of the first and last 50 consecutive cases out of 1000 patients

Poster Details

First Author: E. Taylor GERMANY

Co Author(s): D. Breyer   H. Kaymak   K. Klabe   P. Hagen   F. Kretz   G.    Auffarth   

Abstract Details

Purpose:

The aim of this retrospective data analysis was to compare the quality of life and vision of our first 50 consecutive ReLEx SMILE patients with our last 50 consecutive patients. This way we investigated the question whether the treatment related learning curve and improvements in laser spot energy settings are reflected in our patients’ postoperative quality of life and vision.

Setting:

All ReLEx SMILE (VisuMax, CZM) treatments and follow-ups were performed at the Breyer-Kaymak-Klabe Eyesurgery in Duesseldorf, Germany. We considered two groups of patients that underwent bilateral ReLEx SMILE: Group A: Our first 50 consecutive cases, Group B: Our last 50 consecutive cases.

Methods:

Visual acuity at far and manifest refraction were measured with a phoropter and ETDRS reading charts in 4m distance. Furthermore, 3 month after the second surgery the postoperative quality of life was assessed using a “The Quality of Life Impact of Refractive Correction (QIRC)” patient questionnaire (Pesudovs et. al 2004). Thereby we used a german translation which was translated back to English by a professional translation company and then compared to the original version in order to check for consistency. Patient answers for the 5-category response scale were converted into Rasch scaled scores.

Results:

The average score for the items „2. During the past month, how often have you experienced your eyes feeling tired or strained?“, “11. How concerned are you about your vision being not as good as it could be?” and „17. During the past month, how much of the time have you felt confident?“ was 47±7 (47±8), 38±9 (39±8) and 46±8 (48±8) for group A (B), respectively.

Conclusions:

Our evaluation did not display significant differences between both patient groups and the scoring numbers were in agreement with literature values. In total the patients were very satisfied with the ReLEx SMILE treatment.

Financial Disclosure:

receives consulting fees, retainer, or contract payments from a company producing, developing or supplying the product or procedure presented, travel has been funded, fully or partially, by a competing company, travel has been funded, fully or partially, by a company producing, developing or supplying the product or procedure presented, receives consulting fees, retainer, or contract payments from a competing company