Ocular aberrations before and after myopic corneal refractive surgery: LASIK-induced changes measured with laser ray tracing.

PURPOSE To determine objectively the changes in the ocular aberrations (3rd order and above) induced by myopic LASIK refractive surgery and its impact on image quality. METHODS The ocular aberrations of 22 normal myopic eyes (preoperative refraction ranged from -13 to -2 D) were measured before (2.9 +/- 4.3 weeks) and after (7.7 +/- 3.2 weeks) LASIK refractive surgery using a laser ray tracing technique. A set of laser pencils is sequentially delivered onto the eye through different pupil locations. For each ray, the corresponding retinal image is collected on a CCD camera. The displacement of the image centroid with respect to a reference provides direct information of the ocular aberrations. Root-mean-square (RMS) wavefront error was taken as image quality metric. RESULTS RMS wavefront error increased significantly in all eyes but two after surgery. On average, LASIK induced a significant (P = 0.0003) 1.9-fold increase in the RMS error for a 6.5-mm pupil. The main contribution was due to the increase (fourfold, P < 0.0001) of spherical aberration. The increase in the RMS for a 3-mm pupil (1.7-fold) was also significant (P = 0.02). The modulation transfer (computed for 6.5-mm pupil) decreased on average by a factor of 2 for middle-high spatial frequencies. CONCLUSIONS (1) Laser ray tracing is a well-suited, robust, and reliable technique for the evaluation of the change of ocular aberrations with refractive surgery. (2) Refractive surgery induces important amounts of 3rd and higher order aberrations. The largest increase occurs for spherical aberration. Decentration of the ablation pattern seems to generate 3rd order aberrations. (3) This result is important for the design of customized ablation algorithms, which should cancel existing preoperative aberrations while avoiding the generation of new aberrations.