Clinical evaluation demonstrates reduced corneal stiffness after LASIK in human patients, suggesting structural weakening from anterior stroma loss.
The impact of LASIK surgery on corneal biomechanics remains unclear. To address this, we used air-coupled ultrasonic optical coherence elastography (ACUS-OCE) system to examine the full spatial-dependent elasticity of corneas before and after LASIK. We measured Lamb wave propagation speed and average corneal thickness in 16 semi-meridians to calculate the Shear Modulus (G) in 30 healthy control subjects (n=60 corneas) and 8 patients (n= 16 corneas) pre- and 1-month post-LASIK. G decreased from 52±4 kPa to 43±5 kPa after LASIK intervention. In summary, LASIK decreased corneal stiffness, which is consistent with the loss of anterior stroma containing high lamellae interweaving.
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Zvietcovich et al. (2024) studied this question.
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