“Customized Wavefront PRK is an area of extreme interest to the military” was how Captain Elizabeth Hoffmeister, MD put it after presenting superb results of customized wavefront PRK (flapless LASIK) at the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting. Dr. Hoffmeister presented a recently completed US Military study of 334 eyes of 167 patients undergoing customized wavefront PRK using the VISX Star S4IR excimer laser. This 1 year study included 7 military centers and was the first of its kind in the military in that centers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force all participated. The results were truly outstanding: 100% of subjects saw 20/40 or better (vision good enough to pass a driver’s test without glasses or contacts), 99% saw 20/20 or better, and 92% saw 20/16 or better — in other words, better than “perfect” vision! This is consistent with a customized wavefront PRK study I presented at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, conducted at the Shapiro Laser Eye Center. Our study of 50 patients undergoing customized wavefront PRK at our center showed 100% of patients said they saw as least as well as with their glasses or contacts and 96% said they said they saw better than they had ever seen with glasses or contact lenses. The US military performs 30-40,000 cases of laser vision correction each year with 75% being PRK and 25% being LASIK. Given these truly amazing results, the US military finds customized wavefront PRK to be of “extreme interest.”

Customized Wavefront PRK