Monovision LASIK Versus Presbyopia-Correcting IOLs: Comparison of Clinical and Patient-Reported Outcomes

To compare clinical and quality of life outcomes between patients who underwent monovision LASIK and refractive lens exchange.

The study comprised 590 patients with refractive lens exchange and 608 patients with monovision LASIK available for 3-month postoperative clinical visits. All patients with refractive lens exchange had a Tecnis Symfony lens (Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., Santa Ana, CA) in at least one eye. Patients were divided into four refractive categories: moderate to high myopia, low myopia, plano presbyopia, and hyperopia. Three-month postoperative data were compared between monovision LASIK and refractive lens exchange for each group.

Postoperatively, the percentage of patients with binocular uncorrected distance visual acuity of 20/20 or better, for monovision LASIK and refractive lens exchange, respectively, was as follows: moderate to high myopia: 84.7% vs 90.7% (P = .31), low myopia: 89.4% vs 85.2% (P = .45), plano presbyopia: 90.5% vs 89.9% (P = .90), and hyperopia: 77.5% vs 84.2% (P = .03). For near vision, the percentage with binocular near visual acuity of 20/40 or better (J5) at 40 cm was as follows: moderate to high myopia: 98.9% vs 90.7% (P < .01), low myopia: 100% vs 98.1% (P = .17), plano presbyopia: 96.8% vs 95.8% (P = .34), and hyperopia: 95.6% vs 95.7% (P = .96). There was a statistically significant difference in patient satisfaction in favor of monovision LASIK for moderate to high myopia (94.3% for monovision LASIK vs 79.1% for refractive lens exchange, P <.01). For all other refractive categories, there was no significant difference in patient satisfaction. All myopic patients with refractive lens exchange experienced more postoperative visual phenomena than patients with monovision LASIK. The plano presbyopia group had comparable visual phenomena between the two procedures.

Monovision LASIK and refractive lens exchange are both reasonable options for presbyopic patients. [J Refract Surg. 2017;33(11):749-758.].