refractive and aberration outcomes after customized photorefractive keratectomy in comparison with customized femtosecond laser

to compare the refractive and visual outcomes and higher order aberrations in patients with low to moderate myopia who underwent customized photorefractive keratectomy (prk) or  femtosecond laser in situ keratomileusis (femto-lasik) this study performed this research includes data of 120 consecutive eyes of 60 patients with myopia between -3.00 d and -7.00 d with or without astigmatism in two surgery groups: prk and femto-lasik. refractive, visual, and aberration outcomes of the two methods of surgery were compared after 6 months of follow-up. after 6 months of follow-up, sphere and cylinder were found significantly decreased and there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. the mean of uncorrected distance visual acuity in logmar format for the prk and femto-lasik groups was -0.03±0.07 and -0.01±0.08, respectively, which was not significantly different between the two groups. higher orders and spherical aberrations increased in both groups significantly, while total aberrations decreased in both groups. after surgery, no differences were observed between the two groups in the amount of aberrations. both prk and femto-lasik are effective and safe in correcting myopia. in this study prk induced more spherical and higher order aberrations than femto-lasik.