[A report of epikeratophakia for the correction of aphakia]

Epikeratophakia is a new refractive corneal surgery since 1980. The authors treated 30 cases of unilateral aphakia with corneal lenses prepared by a self-made cryolathe. After a mean postoperative follow-up of 161 days, all patients obtained visual improvement. 19 eyes (63.3%) achieved uncorrected visual acuity over 0.5, and 5 eyes (16.7%) were 1.0 or over. 8 eyes (26.7%) were corrected to within 1 diopter by the surgery, and the mean postoperative corneal astigmatism was 2.53 diopters. The complications included over or under correction of the refractive error, interlamellar epithelial ingrowth and opacity. The safety, efficacy and re-operability of epikeratophakia make it a promising technique.