Radial keratotomy: effects of corneal thickness on final outcome

Corneal thickness may contribute in the final outcome of radial keratotomy operation for the correction of myopia. We present our study on ninety-nine consecutive eyes with a mean follow-up of one year.

Ninety-nine eyes with preoperative/uncorrected Myopia between 2.5-6.0D and a mean age of 29.2 (+/- 7) years underwent radial keratotomy between January 1999-December 2001 in the Department of Ophthalmology, Military Hospital, Rawalpindi. The eyes were divided based on their corneal thickness into group-A (51 eyes), with a pachymeter reading of 500-540 microns, and Group-B (48 eyes), with a pachymeter reading of 541-580 microns. The comparison between the Postoperative visual acuity of two groups was made at the end of study after one years' follow up.

Forty-five eyes (88.23%) in Group-A improved to an uncorrected acuity of 20/20 as compared to forty eyes (83.33%) in Group-B (p > 0.05). Hyperopic shift occurred in two eyes (3.92%) in Group-A, as compared to ten eyes (20.83%) of Group-B (p > 0.05). Refraction showed that 94.11% cases of Group-A to be within 1 diopter of Emmetropia as compared to 93.75% cases in Group-B. Similarly, 98.03% cases of Group-A were within 2 diopters of Emmetropia as compared to 95.83% cases of Group-B. Glare and variation of vision in the initial four weeks were the most frequently reported complications in both groups.

Thickness of cornea does not significantly affect the outcome of surgery in cases of low to moderate degrees of myopia.