Comparative Study of Stromal Bed of LASIK Flaps Created With Femtosecond Lasers and Mechanical Microkeratome

Kontadakis, Georgios

Comparative Study of Stromal Bed of LASIK Flaps Created With Femtosecond Lasers and Mechanical Microkeratome

Friday, April 25, 2014

KIOSKS (Boston Convention and Exhibition Center)

Georgios A. Kontadakis, MD, MSc, University of Crete, Heraklion Crete, Greece

George D. Kymionis, MD, PhD, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

Irini Naoumidi, University of Crete, Heraklion Crete, Greece

Vardhaman P. Kankariya, MD, University of Crete, Heraklion Crete, Greece

Ioannis G. Pallikaris, MD, PhD, Institute of Vision and Optics, Heraklion, Greece

Narrative Responses:

Purpose
To compare stromal bed smoothness in LASIK flaps created with two different femtosecond lasers (IntraLase FS 150; and WaveLight FS200;) and a mechanical microkeratome (Carriazo-Pendular microkeratome).

Methods
Sixty freshly enucleated porcine eyes were used for the study. Twenty flaps were created and constitute each of the following three groups: IntraLase FS 150 (IFS group), Wavelight FS 200 (WFS group) and mechanical microkeratome (MMK group). In each of the three groups, ten flaps were created with intended thickness of 110μm and another ten flaps with 130μm. Images were assessed with light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Qualitative surface roughness grading of the images was performed by 5 masked observers and statistical comparisons of scores were made between groups.

Results
The results of Qualitative Surface Roughness Grading demonstrated that there was no significant difference between the two FS lasers when comparing the subgroups with same flap thickness (p>0.05 in both comparisons, Mann-Whitney U test). In addition, there was no statistically significant difference (p>0.05) in each flap maker group between different thickness subgroups. On the other hand, the scores of the FS laser subgroups were significantly better than the scores of the mechanical microkeratome subgroups with corresponding flap thicknesses (p<0.05, Mann-Whitney U test).

Conclusion
Our study demonstrates that the IntraLase FS150 and the WaveLight FS200 had a similar performance and provided flaps with smooth surfaces. In comparison to the mechanical microkeratome, the studied femtosecond laser systems had a superior performance in terms of smoothness.