PRK Procedure

PRK eye surgery is an excellent treatment option available to patients that have myopic, hyperopic, and astigmatic visual errors. If you are interested in undergoing treatment, schedule a consultation with an eye doctor to find out if you are an appropriate candidate for treatment.

Before PRK

There are several important tests that need to be performed before you undergo PRK laser surgery. Your doctor will perform a full eye exam and ask for your eye history to make sure that your prescription has been stable for at least one year. During this examination, the doctor will determine whether you are a good candidate for PRK laser surgery. The examination will include:

• Dilation exam to check for ocular irregularities
• Refractive error measurement
• Pupil and corneal thickness measurements
• Corneal topography map
• Tear function analysis
• Discussion of medical history, lifestyle, and expectations

Pre-operative Instructions

If you are a suitable PRK candidate and decide to schedule a surgery date, your surgeon will ask that you follow his or her pre-operative instructions, which may include:

• If you wear soft contact lenses, you should not wear them for one week prior to your eye exam. This will ensure that your refractive error is measured properly.
• If you wear hard or gas permeable lenses, you should not wear them for two to three weeks prior to the exam. This will ensure that your refractive error is measured properly.
• Wash your face just prior to and do not wear make-up to your exam.
• Stop smoking cigarettes in the days leading up to the procedure.
• Do not consume alcohol in the 24 hours prior to surgery.
• Do not eat or drink anything for eight hours before the procedure.
• Stop taking aspirin, NSAIDS, and certain vitamins and herbs.

PRK Treatment Process

PRK laser surgery differs from LASIK in that a corneal flap is not created before the laser is used to ablate the eye. Prior to PRK laser surgery, the eye will be anesthetized with eye drops. Next, the outermost layer of the cornea, the epithelium, is completely removed. After the epithelial layer is removed, the surgeon uses a laser to reshape the cornea. In LASIK surgery, a corneal flap is created with a microkeratome blade or a laser, allowing the surgeon to access and reshape underlying layers of corneal tissue.

Because the entire epithelial layer of the eye is removed during PRK surgery, the superficial layers of the cornea must heal. This involves longer recovery time, more follow-up visits with the doctor, higher risk of infection, and slower recovery of the patient's best vision. Still, in some cases, surgeons prefer the PRK procedure because it avoids flap complications (despite post-operative healing and discomfort).

The actual PRK procedure takes less than 15 minutes, but preoperative preparation may extend surgery time to one hour. Both eyes can be done at the same time, but some surgeons prefer to do each eye separately. Most refractive surgeons perform this type of laser vision correction as an outpatient procedure.

Custom PRK

While traditional PRK surgery is an excellent treatment option for these patients, custom PRK surgery utilizes wavefront mapping technology for even more accurate vision correction. Utilizing advanced wavefront technology, PRK eye surgery can be tailored to the unique vision correction needs of each patient. The wavefront system produces a three-dimensional map of the eye that is transferred to the computer-controlled laser during the corneal reshaping portion of the laser vision correction procedure. This allows surgeons to reshape the cornea with increased precision.

The custom PRK procedure not only corrects lower order visual aberrations (nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism), but also treats higher order aberrations that affect the quality and clarity of vision. Higher order aberrations include glare, halos, blurring, starburst patterns, double vision, and difficulty seeing at night.

PRK Results

In spite of the procedural differences between PRK and LASIK, once the eyes are completely healed (in about six months), patients enjoy equivalent vision improvement. PRK success stories have been documented for over 15 years. More than 300,000 patients in roughly 47 countries have undergone PRK, and in a recent survey 95 percent of these patients said they were happy with their PRK results and would undergo the procedure again.

While PRK success statistics are slightly better for patients who need less correction, and slightly lower for PRK patients with higher refractive errors, the vast majority of patients say that their final vision is similar to what their vision used to be with glasses or contact lenses. In fact, 82 percent of myopic (nearsighted) patients enjoy vision of 20/25 or better, while 98 percent of these patients enjoy PRK success with vision of 20/40 or better within one year.

Patients that have the highest PRK success rates undergo custom PRK surgery. This advanced form of vision correction surgery offers more accurate technology paired with the ability to correct both lower and higher order vision aberrations.

Contact a Surgeon

Contact a local PRK surgeon to schedule your consultation about treatment.