Humidity may affect LASIK surgery.A period of high humidity before surgery to correct nearsightedness nearsightedness or myopia, defect of vision in which far objects appear blurred but near objects are seen clearly. Because the eyeball is too long or the refractive power of the eye's lens is too strong, the image is focused in front of the can boost the chance that a person will need a follow-up operation, a new study of the procedure shows. Humidity apparently makes the cornea swell temporarily. That may induce a surgeon to remove less of that tissue than is needed to fully correct an individual's eyesight, researchers report in the April Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. In laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis n. LASIK. Laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) A type of refractive eye surgery using a laser and another instrument to change the shape of the cornea. (LASIK LASIK laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis. LA·SIK n. Eye surgery in which the surface of the cornea is reshaped using a laser, performed to correct certain refractive disorders such as myopia. ) surgery, a doctor peels back the outer layer of the cornea, the clear shield that covers the eye, and then uses laser pulses to vaporize portions of the inner cornea, or stroma stroma /stro·ma/ (stro´mah) pl. stro´mata [Gr.] the matrix or supporting tissue of an organ.stro´malstromat´ic stro·ma n. pl. stro·ma·ta 1. , to reshape it before replacing the corneal flap. During 2000, ophthalmologist Keith A. Walter of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine Wake Forest University School of Medicine, along with North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Physicians, is part of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center system. in Winston-Salem, N.C., recorded details of LASIK surgeries he performed on 191 nearsighted patients. About 20 percent of patients required a follow-up procedure mainly because Walter hadn't removed enough stroma. Follow-up LASIK--also called touch-up surgery--took care of the discrepancy, Walter says. He reports that the patients needing touch-ups were more likely than others to have had their initial surgery after 2 weeks of humid weather. The moisture presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. caused people's stromas to swell and led Walter to remove less tissue than necessary. Walter concludes that physicians should pay attention to humidity and adjust stroma removal during LASIK accordingly. |
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