[A study on five-year postoperative results of radial keratotomy]

Radial keratotomy was performed on 285 myopic eyes (155 cases) with a mean of -5.48D. 1-2 pairs of flag-shaped transverse incisions were also made to correct corneal astigmatism over 1.00D. After a postoperative follow-up of 4-5 years, the mean keratometric corneal refractive power, corneal astigmatism and spherical equivalent refraction of the eyes were reduced by 3.98D, 0.36D and -4.74D, respectively. The rates of emmetropia, overcorrection and undercorrection were 70.7%, 15.5% and 13.8%, respectively. The decrease of the best corrected visual acuity by over two lines occurred in 3.4% of the eyes. The percentage of eyes with postoperative uncorrected visual acuity > or = 1.0 was 63.8% and that > or = 0.6, 89.7%. The complications included corneal microperforation in 4.6%, visual fluctuation in 34.1% and glare in 8.8% which decreased to 1.8% after postoperative 6 months. The mean rate of endothelial cell loss at the central optical zone was 6.2% in the postoperative 1-2 years.