Cole Eye Institute Outcomes

Refractive surgery involves modification of the eye’s focusing power, usually through laser treatment of the cornea, to reduce or eliminate a patient’s dependence on glasses or contact lenses. Surgeons at Cole Eye Institute use several laser platforms to perform corneal refractive surgery: the Alcon WaveLight® EX 500 excimer laser, which delivers the corrective photoablative profile, the Alcon WaveLight® FS200 femtosecond laser for flap creation, and the ZEISS VisuMax® femtosecond laser for flap creation and for performing a newer procedure called SMILE (small incision lenticule extraction).

The total number of laser refractive surgery cases in 2023 were 1743. This section reports outcomes of 163 eyes out of these treated with femtosecond laser-assisted surgery in situ keratomileusis (LASIK, also referred to as FemtoLASIK). Not all outcomes were available at the time of publication. Outcomes for all procedures are reported as the percentage of eyes with uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) of 20/20 or 20/25, eyes with an exceptional outcome (UCVA of 20/16 or better), and eyes with UCVA meeting the requirements for driving without glasses (20/40 or better).

Some patients are not candidates for laser vision correction by LASIK, or PRK, but may be candidates for lens implants (Visian® ICL and Visian Toric ICL phakic intraocular lenses for correcting high myopia or myopic astigmatism, respectively) or refractive lens exchange surgery. The results of these surgeries are not reported here. A VISX™ Star S4 excimer laser is used only for therapeutic laser treatments for corneal scars and dystrophies and therefore is not included in these refractive surgery outcomes.