A Multicenter Retrospective Survey of Refractive Surgery in 78,248 Eyes

To retrospectively evaluate the current practice, trends, and outcomes of refractive surgery in Japan.

This multicenter survey comprised 78,248 eyes of 39,727 consecutive patients who underwent refractive surgery at 45 major institutions in Japan. The corresponding ophthalmologists responded to a selfadministered questionnaire. The authors especially evaluated the safety, efficacy, predictability, stability, and adverse events of LASIK and phakic intraocular lens (IOL) implantation 3 months postoperatively.

The most common refractive surgery was LASIK (90.9%), followed by corneal inlay (5.0%), posterior chamber phakic IOL implantation (1.3%), laser-assisted subepithelial keratomileusis (1.0%), refractive lens exchange (0.9%), photorefractive keratectomy (0.3%), and refractive lenticule extraction (0.2%). For subgroup analysis, 69,987 eyes (99.5%) and 67,512 eyes (95.9%) achieved corrected and uncorrected distance visual acuity of 20/20 or better, respectively, after LASIK, and 935 eyes (98.8%) and 890 eyes (94.1%), respectively, after phakic IOL implantation. There were 69,176 eyes (98.3%) and 908 eyes (96.0%) within ±1.00 diopter (D) of the attempted correction after LASIK and phakic IOL implantation, respectively. There were 1,926 eyes (2.7%) and 1 eye (0.1%) with changes in refraction of 1.00 D or less from 1 week to 3 months after LASIK and phakic IOL implantation, respectively. No vision-threatening complications occurred in any case.

According to this survey, LASIK remains the most prevalent surgical technique in Japan. Both LASIK and phakic IOL implantation offered good safety and efficacy outcomes, yielding predictable and stable results. [J Refract Surg. 2017;33(9):598-602.].