Given the chance of corneal haze after PRK, is it better to have Lasik?

The first item of importance to convey is that, all things being equal, the long term outcome and quality of vision has been found to be the same with either PRK or Lasik. The discussion in this question is more surrounding short term issues and healing. There is no question that in the mid 1990's, when PRK(Photorefractive Keratectomy) was first approved by the FDA, we saw some issues with corneal haze during healing. Sometimes this haze lasted for months. In the early part of the last... more

There are a variety of reasons to have PRK instead of LASIK. In my practice we perform PRK on those with corneas too thin for safe LASIK and those who postoperatively are likely to receive blows to their eye putting them at significant risk for movement of their flap. The US military performs more laser procedures than anyone other organization and the vast majority are PRK. This is done because of the concern or flap movement in combat. Patients of mine who box or... more

I stopped doing PRK a decade ago, because of the pain, delayed recovery, and haze/scarring risk then i switched to LASIK, which eliminated these problems, but added risk of Keratoconus or KC you can't do LASIK on higher prescriptions safely, because your cornea would be too thin after so 5 years i joined the movement called Back To The Surface which is gaining steam among surgeons now i do an Advanced Surface Ablation, which is either a LASEK or an epiLASEK the... more