Surgical procedures performed after refractive surgery

Refractive surgical procedures have been performed for over one decade. The complications that cause visual disability are abnormalities in wound healing, residual ametropia, and/or severe irregular astigmatism. Many of these complications can be manifested clinically in terms of visually disabling problems (loss of best-corrected vision, glare, monocular diplopia, etc). Some of these complications require additional standard ophthalmic or refractive surgical procedures to restore vision. However, since these secondary procedures have been performed in only a few cases, we known little about their outcome.

We report the histopathologic analysis of 132 cases that have undergone a secondary surgical procedure following a primary keratorefractive procedure. We attempt to correlate the problems encountered with such secondary intervention with histopathologic information obtained from specimens that have been submitted to our pathology laboratory and that had undergone secondary surgical procedures.

Many specimens displayed abnormalities in wound healing associated with visual difficulties such as loss of best corrected acuity, glare, and under- and overcorrection. A short time from the initial procedure to the time of secondary intervention was common.

The combination of a secondary surgical or keratorefractive procedure can produce unpredictable refractive results. Judicious application of a refractive procedure and an appropriate time period before a second procedure is performed may reduce unexpected refractive complications.