LASIK complications and their management

Surgical Correction of Myopia

“…Those complications were mostly related to corneal anatomy (flat <41.00 D or steep >46.00 D corneas, small corneal diameter), inadequate suction, mechanical failure-a defect in the dissection blade or motor unit-and surgeon experience. Penetration into the anterior chamber is extremely rare and may occur during lamellar dissection or excimer laser photoablation usually on extremely thin corneas with old scars [33].…”

“…Laser-related complications include decentration of excimer laser ablation, irregular astigmatism, and formation of central islands. Those complications are clinically characterized by poor uncorrected and corrected distance visual acuity complaints of glare, "ghosting" around images and haloes, and refractive astigmatism in the axis of decentration [33].…”

“…Flap striae are caused by misalignment of the flap; peripheral striae usually are asymptomatic; however, central location of the striae is associated with loss in corrected distance visual acuity and night vision disturbances [33,36].…”

“…Diffuse lamellar keratitis (Sands of Sahara syndrome) is a sterile inflammation probably caused by the introduction of toxins in the flap interface [37,38]. It is graded in four stages, with stage one and two being mild and visually unthreatening, while stage four can lead to corneal melting and permanent changes [33,39]. In comparison to diffuse lamellar keratitis, central toxic keratopathy is a rare noninflammatory central corneal opacification linked to enzymatic degradation of keratocytes with spontaneous resolution and mild central opacification which often causes refractory hyperopic shift [40].…”

“…Infectious keratitis after LASIK is extremely rare but can be quite serious since invading organisms are already implanted into the deep corneal stroma. The most often isolated organisms include Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Mycobacterium chelonae, and Nocardia asteroides [33,42].…”