News Briefs Archive

LASIK: Why There May Be More You Should Be Telling Patients

June 20, 2018

Refractive surgery has been a solution for decades for patients longing to be free of glasses and contact lenses, and it’s been widely accepted that the vast majority of patients are satisfied with the results.

A piece last week in The New York Times, however, calls those assumptions into question, based on a recent clinical trial by the FDA.

Nearly half of a subset of study participants, those without symptoms before LASIK, developed visual aberrations for the first time after the procedure, the trial found. Nearly one-third developed dry eyes for the first time, the Times reports, noting that the clinical trial’s authors advise that “patients undergoing LASIK surgery should be adequately counseled about the possibility of developing new visual symptoms after surgery before undergoing this elective procedure.”

The article points out that most visual aberrations following the procedure subside after the first few months, but also points out that not many long-term (longer than one year) post-surgical studies have been conducted.

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