Excimer Laser Photoablation Clinical Results and Treatment of Complications in 1992

The excimer laser photoablation has undergone more than 3 years of clinical testing in sighted eyes.¹⁻³A summary of the clinical results of excimer laser photoablation presented during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in Anaheim, Calif, October 8-11, 1991, is listed in Table 1. Although the final figures are yet to be published, the available numbers demonstrate that excimer laser photoablation (photorefractive keratectomy, [PRK]) is a viable technique for the correction of myopia. See also pp 1230 and 1286. In a previous editorial,¹⁰I expressed cautious optimism for the future potential of PRK. In that editorial, I compared the technique to the most commonly performed refractive procedure—radial keratotomy (RK).¹⁰In this issue of theArchives, Seiler and coworkers¹¹compare the clinical results of PRK in 298 sighted eyes with those of the Prospective Evaluation of Radial Keratotomy (PERK) study¹²1