A multicenter retrospective survey of refractive surgery in 78,248 eyes

PURPOSE: To retrospectively evaluate the current practice, trends, and outcomes of refractive surgery in Japan. METHODS: This multicenter survey comprised 78,248 eyes of 39,727 consecutive patients who underwent refractive surgery at 45 major institutions in Japan. The corresponding ophthalmologists responded to a self-administered questionnaire. The authors especially evaluated the safety, efficacy, predictability, stability, and adverse events of LASIK and phakic intraocular lens (IOL) implantation 3 months postoperatively. RESULTS: The most common refractive surgery was LASIK (90.9%), followed by corneal inlay (5.0%), posterior chamber phakic IOL implantation (1.3%), laserassisted subepithelial keratomileusis (1.0%), refractive lens exchange (0.9%), photorefractive keratectomy (0.3%), and refractive lenticule extraction (0.2%). For subgroup analysis, 69,987 eyes (99.5%) and 67,512 eyes (95.9%) achieved corrected and uncorrected distance visual acuity of 20/20 or better, respectively, after LASIK, and 935 eyes (98.8%) and 890 eyes (94.1%), respectively, after phakic IOL implantation. There were 69,176 eyes (98.3%) and 908 eyes (96.0%) within ±1.00 diopter (D) of the attempted correction after LASIK and phakic IOL implantation, respectively. There were 1,926 eyes (2.7%) and 1 eye (0.1%) with changes in refraction of 1.00 D or less from 1 week to 3 months after LASIK and phakic IOL implantation, respectively. No vision-threatening complications occurred in any case. CONCLUSIONS: According to this survey, LASIK remains the most prevalent surgical technique in Japan. Both LASIK and phakic IOL implantation offered good safety and efficacy outcomes, yielding predictable and stable results.