Comparison of Subjective Visual Experiences and Ocular Symptoms After Wavefront-Guided and Wavefront-Optimized LASIK in a Prospective Fellow Eye Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the subjective visual experience and ocular symptoms of fellow eyes treated with wavefront-optimized (WFO-) laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) and wavefront-guided (WFG-) LASIK. Prospective randomized fellow eye, controlled study. Two hundred eyes of 100 subjects from a single academic center were enrolled and randomly assigned to treatment with WFO-LASIK in one eye and WFG-LASIK in the fellow eye. Subjects filled out a validated 14-part questionnaire for each eye at the preoperative visit and at postoperative months 1,3,6,12. In comparing the number of subjects who reported symptoms in the WFG- vs WFO- LASIK eyes, there was no difference in number reporting any visual experience (glare, halos, starbursts, hazy vision, blurred vision, distortion, double or multiple images, fluctuations in vision, focusing difficulties, and depth perception; all p>0.05) or ocular symptoms (photosensitivity, dry eye, foreign body sensation, ocular pain; all p>0.05). There was no preference for WFG-LASIK (28%) or the WFO-LASIK treated eye (29%) with most subjects reporting no preference (43%; Chi-squared p=0.972). Of the subjects who preferred one eye or the other, the preferred eye saw statistically better than the fellow eye (0.8 ± 1.4 Snellen line, p=0.0002). There was no other difference in subjective visual experience, ocular symptoms, refractive characteristics when taking into account eye preference. Most subjects had no eye preference; and for subjects who did have eye preference, the only detectable difference was better visual acuity in the preferred eye.