Ophthalmology
Key to better-than-20/20 vision is in the Flap
By Goolsby Group
Apr 14, 2005, 16:10

New scientific data being presented at this year's ASCRS meeting reveals the key to a better-than-20/20 outcome in LASIK surgery may depend on whether your doctor uses a blade or a laser to create the corneal flap in the first step of the procedure.

"It turns out that the flap that we make in LASIK is not an innocent bystander," says Roger F. Steinert, M.D., 2005 ASCRS president, professor of ophthalmology, professor of biomedical engineering, director of cornea, refractive and cataract surgery, and vice chair of clinical ophthalmology at University of California, Irvine.

"We now have data validating something we suspected for the past year but hadn't firmly proven, which is that the rate of achieving high levels of vision is better with the IntraLase laser than with the conventional metal microkeratome. On theoretical grounds we knew flap creation with IntraLase would be safer, and its performance bore that out. But we didn't anticipate seeing a difference in actual vision. Multiple studies now show higher rates of 20/20, higher rates of better than 20/20, and that Custom treatments show better results as well."

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