Total Corneal Astigmatism Correction With Limbal Relaxing Incisions Made by Femtosecond Laser System
Narrative Responses:
Purpose
To evaluate the efficacy of Lensx femtosecond laser-assisted limbal relaxing incisions in the treatment of total corneal astigmatism (TCA) and its effects on anterior and posterior astigmatism.
Methods
This is a retrospective chart review. We evaluated eyes that underwent cataract surgery and astigmatism correction using the Lensx femtosecond laser from 9/2012-10/2013.Limbal relaxing incisions at 85% corneal depth were performed using the adjusted Donnenfeld Lensx LRI nomogram. The position and length of the primary clear corneal cataract incisions were included in our analysis at post-op month 3 in addition to total corneal astigmatism, anterior corneal astigmatism and posterior corneal astigmatism-all obtained using the Oculus Pentacam. Patients with prior refractive surgery were placed into a separate.
Results
We evaluated 100 eyes that underwent laser cataract surgery. The cohort consisted of 59 females and 41 males. The average pre-op astigmatism was .93D and the average post-op astigmatism was .73D (21.5% decrease).The average pre-op anterior astigmatism was .73D and the average post-op anterior astigmatism was .66D (9.6% decrease). The average pre-op posterior astigmatism was .33D and the average post-op posterior astigmatism was .34D (3.3% increase). Higher percentages of correction in TCA correlated with higher amounts of pre-op TCA.
Conclusion
Lensx femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery Limbal relaxing incisions are found to be safe and efficacious in treating mild, moderate as well as high amounts of corneal astigmatism. Further studies are necessary to validate these findings.