Experiences with photorefractive excimer laser treatment in compound myopic astigmatism.

The invention of excimer lasers and different masks in order to treat refractive failures has opened a new era in refractive surgery. The refractive grading, the ablation effect, which can be controlled within one micrometer, and the design of a special mask made possible so-called "corneal sculpting" in compound astigmatism. The authors evaluated their experiences on 27 myopic compound astigmatic eyes. The average age of the patients was 28.67 +/- 9.78 years and the average preoperative uncorrected visual acuity was 0.06 +/- 0.04. The spherical component averaged -6.74 +/- 2.81 D and the cylindrical component averaged -2.3 +/- 1.54 D (the preoperative correction needed to obtain the best corrected visual acuity). Postoperatively, the uncorrected visual acuity improved to 0.65 +/- 0.26. To obtain the best corrected postoperative visual acuity an average -0.51 +/- 1.06 D sph and an average -0.54 +/- 1.06 D cyl component was needed. The authors conclude that ArF excimer laser treatment is able to alter both of the spherical and cylindrical components of the eye toward emmetropia. The lower the degree of preoperative compound myopic astigmatism, the better are the chances of postoperative emmetropia. No serious complications were met during the follow-up period.