Femtosecond laser lenticule extraction techniques results rival those of LASIK

A retrospective study involving patients undergoing femtosecond laser lenticule extraction procedures suggest that the techniques can produce results comparable to those achieved with LASIK performed with a 6th generation excimer laser in the treatment of myopia, said Jorge Alio MD, Spain, at the XXXII Congress of the ESCRS. 

The study included 128 myopic eyes, 32 of which underwent femtosecond lenticule extraction (FLEx), another 32 of which underwent small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE), and 64 eyes which underwent LASIK, matched case-by-case to those under going the femtosecond lenticule extraction procedures, by age, gender and refraction.

Dr Alio and his associates performed the FLEx and SMILE with a VisuMax femtosecond laser (Carl Ziess Meditec). They performed the LASIK cases with a sixth-generation Amaris 7505 excimer laser (Schwind) with flaps created with Intralase FS (AMO).  The mean preoperative refraction was around 4.3 D in the FLEx group and -4.8 D in the SMILE group.

At a follow-up of six months, the different treatment groups had similar stability and improvements in postoperative changes in refraction and visual acuity, although enhancement treatments were necessary in 24.65 per cent of eyes undergoing LASIK.

Patients in the FLEx groups had a a slight but statistically insignificant mean decrease of +0.093 logMAR in best-corrected visual acuity (P=0.083) while the SMILE groups had a statistically significant increase of -0.025 logMAR (P=0.014) in the same parameter. “Femtolaser lenticular extraction techniques; FLEx and SMILE, had satisfying stable refractive and visual outcome, with comparable results, to patients performed 6th generation excimer laser refractive error correction,” the study’s authors concluded.