PRK Risks and Benefits

Learn more about PRK surgery, including the risks, complications, side effects, and success rates that result from the laser vision correction procedure.

PRK Benefits

PRK offers patients excellent results and PRK has a high documented success rate. Some of the many benefits of PRK include:

• PRK can be performed on an outpatient basis and requires very little recovery time. In fact, many PRK patients are able to return to work the next day after their procedure.
• With PRK, it takes only about one minute to correct a patient’s vision for a lifetime.
• Because PRK does not involve the creation of a corneal flap, this procedure is better for patients with already thin or damaged corneas. With PRK, there are no risks of flap complications or flap infection as seen with LASIK. Learn more about the differences between PRK and LASIK.
• PRK offers patients clear natural vision, so they no longer have to deal with the hassle of glasses or contact lenses. This also means that with PRK, side effects of contact use such as warpage, infection, and inflammation of the eyes are eliminated.
• With nearly perfect natural vision, patients see increased self-confidence and expanded recreational and employment opportunities. For example, patients with favorable PRK results are able to pursue careers in law enforcement, aviation, and the military that are unavailable to people who need corrective lenses.

PRK Complications and Side Effects

As with any surgical procedure, PRK does involve some risks. The following is a list of possible PRK complications and side effects:

• Infection
• Reaction to the anesthesia
• Undercorrection or overcorrection
• Light sensitivity
• Glare or halos around lights – especially noticeable at night
• Corneal haze
• Loss of best-corrected vision – some patients might not be able to see objects with as much clarity as before laser eye surgery
• According to the FDA, approximately 5 percent of patients will still need to wear glasses after having PRK surgery
• It is important to remember that patients in their forties or older suffer from presbyopia and will still need reading glasses.

PRK Results – Success Rates

PRK success stories have been documented for over 10 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.

Talk to a Doctor About PRK

If you would like to learn more about PRK benefits, success rates and results, or PRK side effects and risks, use this online directory to contact a PRK specialist in your area. Your PRK specialist will help you to decide if this is the best procedure for you.