40% of patients who had LASIK surgery experience seeing glare or halos around objects

Laser Insitu Kertomileusis (LASIK) or laser surgery may be less invasive than traditional operation to address eye problems, such as removal of cataract or glaucoma, but the procedure also has its side effects. A new study says 40 percent of patients who had undergone LASIK surgery experienced new visual symptoms.

In LASIK, a small cut in the patient’s cornea or the outermost layer is still made. The eye surgeon then uses laser to remove some of the eye’s cornea tissue to reshape it with the objective of improving the patient’s vision. However, in California, scientists are developing an eye drop, using a molecule, to melt cataract.

The symptoms reported include seeing halos or glare around objects which the patient did not experience before the procedure. Findings of researchers at the Food and Drug Administration on the new visual symptoms were published on Thursday in the JAMA Ophthalmology journal, Live Science reports.

The US FDA study had 262 active-duty Navy personnel as participants for the first study and 312 civilians for the second study conducted at five private practice and academic centres. Average age of participants in the first study was 29 and 32 in the second study, News-medical reports.

The two studies looked into how often the patient reported visual symptoms, dry eye symptoms, satisfaction with vision and satisfaction with the LASIK procedure. Other visual symptoms include double image and starbursts, noticed by 43 percent and 46 percent of military and civilian patients, respectively, three months after their LASIK surgery.

However, there appear to be some underreporting by patients to their eye doctors compared to when the patients shared their new visual experience online.

Dr Mark Fromer, an eye doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and was not involved in the FDA study, points out, “Laser vision correction surgery can be a wonderful procedure, but it has to be for the right patient. He explains, “it has to be for the patient who is willing to accept any of the possible side effects that sometimes can occur with LASIK, such as dry eye or eye glare or double image.”