It may be safe for some young people under the age of 21 to undergo LASIK surgery without significant risk of a recurrence of nearsightedness, according to a new study.
Researchers in Jordan recently conducted a large-scale study of the stability of refractive errors to determine which types of patients are most likely to have stable vision correction after refractive surgery and which are at greatest risk for refractive change.
The retrospective study evaluated the refractive errors of 46,384 consecutive patients seen at a single outpatient clinic in Amman, Jordan. Patients were distributed into four groups, based on refractive error:
- Emmetropia — Those with no nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism.
- Low to moderate myopia — Those with up to -6.00 diopters (D) of nearsightedness.
- High myopia — Those with greater than -6.00 D of nearsightedness.
- Hyperopia — Those with any degree of farsightedness.
The age of the patients in the study ranged from 3 to 82 years.
Analysis of the study data revealed:
- Patients with less than -1.00 D of myopia at age 10 and less than -3.00 D of myopia at the time of LASIK surgery (after age 21) had no change in their nearsightedness after age 18.
- Among patients with high myopia, 7.4 percent demonstrated corneal changes that did not stabilize until age 30.
- Patients with hyperopia tended to experience a progression of their refractive error from age 30 to age 50.
Based on the results of the study, the researchers concluded that the minimum age of patients undergoing LASIK for the correction of less than -3.00 D of myopia can be safely lowered from 20 years to 18 years with little risk of progression of myopia after surgery.
The researchers also said that all patients seeking laser vision correction should be educated prior to surgery regarding the risk of progression of refractive error and other possible risks and LASIK complications, based on their required correction.
SOURCE: Age and refraction in 46,000 patients as a potential predictor of refractive stability after refractive surgery. Journal of Refractive Surgery. August 2009.
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