Ocular residual astigmatism's effect on high myopic astigmatism LASIK surgery.

PURPOSE: To analyze the effect of ocular residual astigmatism (ORA) on the effectiveness of LASIK for treating high myopic astigmatism.

METHODS

This is an observational, cross-sectional study. We studied 116 consecutive myopic eyes with -3 diopters (D) or more of astigmatism that underwent LASIK surgery. The magnitude of uncorrected residual refractive astigmatism 3 months postoperatively was measured.

RESULTS

The mean preoperative cylinder was -4.0±0.83 D (range, -7.5 to -3 D) and the mean preoperative ORA was 0.82±0.5 D. The mean residual refractive cylinder 3 months postoperatively was -0.78±0.83 D (range, -3 to 0 D). No correlation was found between ORA and the refractive cylinder 3 months postoperatively (P=0.6).

CONCLUSION

In eyes with high myopic astigmatism undergoing LASIK, ORA was not correlated with the residual postoperative cylinder.