[Radial keratotomy. Apropos of 204 surgically treated eyes]

20 months ago, 204 eyes have been operated for radial keratotomy. 175 cases of myopia varying from 2 to 6 diopters and 29 cases from 6.5 to 10 diopters. In addition to their myopia 39 cases had a myopic astigmatism. We did only 8 radial incisions with the diamond knife for all the cases of simple myopia and an optic center of 3 and 3.5 mm. The depth of the incisions was 95 to 100% of the value of the thickness of the cornea measured with the pachymeter at the optic center of the cornea and this after study of the cornea measurements. We obtained good results between 2 and 4 diopters with sometimes some residual myopia between 5 and 6 diopters. An additive correction for the myopia cases having more than 6 diopters is to be expected. No perforation was done, several patients have had an anterior chamber reaction treated with corticoids and antibiotics eye drops and we didn't notice any noteworthy complication except an hypercorrected astigmatism secondary to a transitory hypertonia and a case of +1.5 of hypermetropia. Even the results are not always perfects the patients are glad not to wear eye glasses anymore.