results of photorefractive keratectomy plus mitomycin-c in the treatment of regressed refractive errors after laser in situ keratomileusis

purpose : to investigate the application of mitomycin-c 0.02% (mmc) in the photorefractive keratectomy (prk) procedure in correcting regressed myopia methods : eighteen eyes of 11 patients with a spherical equivalent (se) of less than -5 diopters (d) who had undergone laser in situ keratomileusis (lasik) more than 2 years before were operated on. at the end of the prk procedure, mmc was applied on the ablated stroma for 1 minute using a surgical sponge and then irrigated with 30 ml of cold sterile balanced salt solution. patients had follow-up visits everyday until complete reepithelialization and then at 1st and 2nd weeks, and at 2nd, 3rd, and 6th months postoperatively. results : the mean preoperative sphere and cylinder were -1.23 d and -1.29 d, respectively, which improved to -0.08 d and -0.30 d, six months after surgery. mean uncorrected and best corrected visual acuity (ucva and bcva) before reoperation were 0.41 and 0.06 logmar that postoperatively changed to 0.13 and 0.04 logmar, respectively. at 6 months after surgery, there was no sign of haze formation in any eye. the safety and efficacy indices were 1.13 and 1.06 at this time, respectively. conclusion : the application of mmc in prk for the treatment of low to moderate regressed myopia after lasik is a safe and effective option. the risk of postoperative haze formation can be reduced using this method.   iranian journal of ophthalmology 201022(1):36-40 © 2010 by the iranian society of ophthalmology