Cooling the cornea to prevent side effects of photorefractive keratectomy.

Complaints after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) include both severe pain and a decrease in quality of vision due to corneal subepithelial haze. We suspect that one of the causes of these troubles is a temperature rise at the corneal surface during ablation. We cooled down the eye with cold balanced salt solution before and after photorefractive keratectomy. Postoperatively, this reduced severe pain, subepithelial corneal haze and any damage to the corneal endothelium.