Update on customized excimer ablations: recent developments reported in 2002

Customized corneal ablation is an exciting frontier in refractive surgery that incorporates wavefront technology to detect and correct higher order aberrations in addition to spherocylindrical refractive errors. The goal is to achieve super normal vision in terms of acuity and contrast. As the concept of wavefront customized ablations is still new, there are a number of aspects of its clinical application that need analysis and understanding. Numerous reports have appeared in the literature during the past year that address the developments, concerns, and limitations of wavefront technology and custom ablation. We have attempted to summarize and discuss the significant reports in this current review. Our focus is on the optical and physiologic limits of wavefront customized correction, including the effect of accommodation, aging, and flap creation on the aberration profile. In addition, we also present the laser technology requirements, and clinical outcomes of customized excimer ablations that are reported to date.