Effects of altered corneal stiffness on native and postoperative LASIK corneal biomechanical behavior: A whole-eye finite element analysis.

PURPOSE: To investigate the impact of corneal elasticity on corneal shape changes before and after simulated LASIK with and without consideration of whole-eye biomechanics.

METHODS

A finite element whole-eye model of a human eye was constructed. The cornea was modeled as hyperelastic and incompressible using experimental data representing a range of corneal stiffness. The corneal response to intraocular pressure loading and LASIK for 2.00, 4.00, and 6.00 diopters of spherical myopia was analyzed as a function of corneal stiffness and limbal boundary conditions.

RESULTS

Myopic LASIK produced different degrees of central flattening and postoperative ametropia in low-stiffness and high-stiffness corneas. Although a cornea-only model demonstrated maximum stresses and displacements in the central cornea and predicted residual myopia, a whole-eye model with equivalent corneal stiffness predicted greater paracentral displacements and less myopic undercorrection. In a whole-eye model with a stiffer cornea, maximum displacements shifted further toward the limbus, favoring additional mechanically mediated central flattening and refractive overcorrection (hyperopia). In postoperative LASIK models thinned by high myopic corrections, corneal stiffening caused central cornea flattening.

CONCLUSIONS

Differences in the corneoscleral stiffness relationship affect simulated refractive outcomes after LASIK and may be a source of individual variation in refractive surgery outcomes. A whole-eye model allowing limbal motion illustrates a stiffness-dependent biomechanical balance between central corneal flattening and pre-ectatic weakening of the corneal apex not demonstrated in previous computational models and provides insight into under- and overcorrection in myopic LASIK and the previously unexplained phenomenon of corneal flattening after therapeutic collagen cross-linking for keratoconus.