Comparison of visual performance recovery after thin-flap LASIK with 4 femtosecond lasers

AIM: To compare the speed of visual recovery following myopic thin-flap LASIK with four femtosecond lasers. METHODS: Eighty-eight eyes of 46 patients who were consecutively scheduled for bilateral LASIK with the IntraLase FS60 (Group 1), Femto LDV Crystal Line (Group 2), Wavelight FS200 (Group 3) and VisuMax (Group 4) femtosecond lasers were enrolled in. Monocular uncorrected distance visual acuity (UDVA), best-corrected distant visual acuity (CDVA), refraction, contrast sensitivity and higher-order aberrations (HOAs) were evaluated at 1, 3d, 1wk and 1mo postoperatively. RESULTS: Sixteen eyes (72.7%) achieved 20/16 and 8 eyes (36.4%) were 20/12.5 at 1d in Group 2, which was significantly more than other 3 groups. At 1wk, 20 eyes (90.9%) achieved 20/16 in Groups 2 and 4. At 1mo, 20 eyes (90.9%) achieved 20/16 in Group 2 and Group 4, which were significantly more than other two groups. While by 1 mo, the difference of the residual spherical equivalent (SE) was not statistically significant among 4 groups (P=0.121). The induction of spherical aberration (SA) were significantly less for Groups 2, 3, 4 than for Group 1 one day after surgery (P=0.015). The differences among 4 groups were not statistically significant before and after surgery on every time points (all P>0.05). CONCLUSION: The thin-flap LASIK procedure using the Femto LDV Crystal Line and VisuMax femtosecond laser show faster visual performance recovery.