Corneal higher-order aberrations after customized aspheric ablation and conventional ablation for myopic correction

To investigate and compare the corneal wavefront aberrations and corneal asphericity after customized aspheric and conventional myopic ablation.

Fifty-eight myopic patients from two laser centers were enrolled in this study. The patients were treated with laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) randomly with customized aspheric algorithm (32 patients, group A) and conventional algorithm (26 patients, group B). There was no significant difference in preoperative mean equivalent sphere (p = 0.954). The manifest refraction, corneal asphericity, and corneal wavefront data were taken into account to generate the customized aspheric ablation profile. Corneal wavefront aberrations, and corneal asphericity were analyzed and compared before and 6 months after the treatment.

Preoperatively, no significant difference was found in corneal asphericity and higher-order aberrations (HOAs) between two groups (p = 0.833 and p = 0.459, respectively). Root mean square (RMS) value of corneal HOAs, spherical aberration, and corneal asphericity increased postoperatively in both groups (p < 0.05), but the smaller increase was shown in group A (p < 0.05). The Zernike third-order aberration increased by 10% (p = 0.088) but without significance in group A compared with significant increase by 27% (p < 0.01) in group B.

The customized aspheric ablation induced smaller increase in corneal higher-order aberrations and corneal asphericity. It provides a good option for the customized myopic correction.