Efficacy and safety of nonpreservedketorolac ophthalmic solution in postoperative ocular pain following radial keratotomy

Abstract

Purpose: To Investigate the efficacy and safety of nonpreserved ketorolac tromethamine 0.5% ophthalmis solution in relieving pain following radial radial-keratotomy (RK) Setting: Multicenter clinical trial. Methods: Topical ketorolac was compared with its Vehicle in a double-maskedrandomized, parallel-group study involving, 170 RK patients. Patients were treated with nonpreserved ketorolac 0.5% ophthalmic solution or the vehicle 4 times daily beginning immediately after surgery and continuing for 3 days or or until they no longer had ocular pain. Results: At several, intervals, patients treated with ketorolac reported significantly greater pain relief and less pain intensity than patients treated with the vehicle. The time required for patients to first report “complete relief” or “no pain” was shorter in the ketorolac than in the vehicle group ( P ≤ .006). Patients in the ketorolac group used less escape medication (acetaminophen), ( P ≤ .001) and had fewer sleep difficulties ( P ≤ .031), fewer symptoms of ocular discomfort ( P ≤ .028), and less difficulty performing activities of daily living ( P = .048). Patients treated with ketarolac experienced the same low rate of treatment-related adverse events as those treated with the vehicle and exhibited the same improvement in visual acuity and manifest refraction. Conclusions: Nonpreserved ketorolac tromethamme 0.5% opthalmic solution wassignificantly more effective than, and as safe as the vehicle in alleviating the postoperative pain associated with RK. This resulted in significant improvement in patient quality of life and less need for oral analgesics suggesting that topical ketorolac is an approprnate treatment option for ocular pain following RK.