Corneal subbasal nerve density changes after laser in situ keratomileusis with mechanical microkeratome and femtosecond laser

Session Details

Session Title: LASIK I

Session Date/Time: Sunday 06/09/2015 | 08:00-10:00

Paper Time: 09:09

Venue: Room 11

First Author: : L.Hu CHINA

Co Author(s): :    W. Xie   L. Tang   J. Chen   D. Zhang   P. Yu   J. Qu     

Abstract Details

Purpose:

To compare the corneal subbasal nerve density (SND) changes using corneal confocal microscope after laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) with microkeratome and femtosecond laser.

Setting:

Eye hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, China

Methods:

It was a prospective clinical study. Sixty eyes of thirty myopes were analyzed. Fifteen patients (30 eyes) underwent LASIK with Moria II microkeratome and the other 15 patients (30 eyes) with 60-KHz IntraLase femtosecond laser. Central, temporal and nasal corneal SND were measured by confocal microscopy and compared before surgery, 1 month, and 3 months after surgery.

Results:

SND at three positions all decreased significantly at each time point postoperatively compared to the baseline values (P <0.05) in both groups; nasal SND increased significantly from 1 month to 3 months (P <0.01) in microkeratome group, temporal and nasal SND both increased significantly from 1 month to 3 months (P <0.05) in femtosecond group. There were no significant differences in central SND between two groups (P >0.05), significant differences in nasal SND were found between two groups at 1 month and 3 months (P <0.01) and significant differences in temporal SND were found between two groups at 3 months after surgery (P <0.01).

Conclusions:

Peripheral corneal nerve recovery occurred at 1 month after LASIK surgery, femtosecond laser showed better corneal regeneration than microkeratome.

Financial Interest:

NONE