Influence of corneal curvature on calculation of ablation patterns used in photorefractive laser surgery.

PURPOSE

The aim of this work was to clarify the influence of the effective illumination area and possible reflection losses that occur during laser-tissue interaction on the modeling of profiles for customized corneal ablation, such as wavefront-guided treatments.

METHODS

The changes of the ablation depth per laser pulse due to the projection of a laser spot onto the corneal front surface and reflection losses at the air-tissue interface were calculated.

RESULTS

Moving with a scanning-spot from the center of the cornea toward the limbus resulted in an increase of the effective illumination area and reflection losses, which led to a decrease in the ablation depth per laser pulse. The decrease of the ablation depth was strongly related to the initial radiant exposure and the corneal curvature radius.

CONCLUSIONS

The corneal front surface must be taken into consideration for ablation profile calculations, especially in customized treatments, due to the strong dependence of the ablation depth on the corneal curvature.