A new 16 year long European study of PRK laser vision correction eye surgery shows long term safety and effectiveness. When PRK laser eye surgery was first being performed, we were not able to give patients long term data about its performance. Today, however, PRK surgery has a very long track record which helps us understand how well it performs on a long term basis and what the long term effects of laser vision correction are.
PRK was the first laser vision correction eye surgery. It was first performed experimentally on a blind human eye in 1981 in the US and first performed on a sighted eye in 1986 in Germany. We therefore have over 25 years of clinical experience with PRK laser vision correction eye surgery.
While PRK has been performed for a quarter of a century, very long term formal studies are difficult to perform at a practical level since it is hard to ask patients who are otherwise doing well to keep coming back for tedious study measurements year after year. Despite this difficulty, we are fortunate to have a 16 year follow up long term study of patients who have previously undergone PRK. This study was published this week in the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
In this recently published study of the long term effects of PRK, 39 eyes of 23 patients were followed for 16 years. 16 years after surgery 27 eyes had 20/20 or better vision without glasses and 36 eyes had 20/30 or better vision without glasses. All patients said they were happy and would do PRK again today if they needed to. Keep in mind, PRK laser eye surgery of 16 years ago was quite primitive compared to the sophisticated modern wavefront guided forms of PRK used today, which makes these results from surgery of 16 years ago even more impressive.
In conclusion, the authors of this remarkable 16 year long study said, “Our study found refractive stability for 16 years post-operatively with a very low level of serious long-term sequelae and high levels of patient satisfaction.”
See Also
16 year Study of PRK confirms good long term results
12 year study of PRK confirms good long term results