Evaluation of quality of vision in early stage after sub-bowman keratomileusis

Abstract

To assess the quality of vision in the early stage after sub-bowman keratomileusis (SBK) for the correction of moderate and high myopia. Retrospective case series. Sixty eight myopic eyes of 35 consecutive patients in Chongqing Medal Eye Institute from May to November 2011 were enrolled in this study. All patients were evaluated at 2 weeks, 1 and 3 months postoperatively. The main measurements included visual acuity, corneal and total optical wavefront aberration, photopic and mesopic contrast sensitivity. The median values of preoperative uncorrected central visual acuity (UCVA) and best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) were 0.05 and 1.00, respectively. The median value of postoperative UCVA was 1.20. There was no significant difference between the preoperative and postoperative anterior corneal total aberration (F = 0.712, P > 0.05). Compared with preoperative value (0.47 ± 0.17)µm, the corneal high orders aberrations in 2 weeks after SBK (1.37 ± 0.72) µm increased by 3 times. The total optical aberrations in 2 weeks after SBK (0.99 ± 0.58) µm decreased to one-eighth of preoperative measurements (8.26 ± 2.93) µm. Compared with preoperative value (0.30 ± 0.12)µm, the total high order aberrations in 2 weeks after SBK (0.46 ± 0.19) µm increased by 1.5 times. Although photopic and mesopic contrast sensitivity fluctuated mildly after SBK, the measurements did not decline significantly. Compared with preoperative data, mesopic contrast sensitivity at 3 months increased 0.294 (F = 20.88,P < 0.01) and 0.296 (F = 13.64, P < 0.01) at 12 and 18 c/d, respectively. Patients could obtain good quality of vision at the early stage after SBK.