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(RK) is a refractive eye surgery that was introduced into the United States in the early 1980’s. After LASIK surgery was introduced in 1993, Radial Keratotomy fell out of favor and gradually ceased to be done. During the 10 years that Radial Keratotomy was aggressively promoted, millions of patients underwent Radial Keratotomy, a procedure now known to have damaged millions of eye in North America and around the world.

 

Radial Keratotomy involved the use of a diamond knife to make radial cuts into the cornea. The purpose of these RK cuts was to flatten the corneal surface in order to eliminate the most common visual disorders, namely myopia (near sightedness) and astigmatism. While Radial Keratotomy improved vision in many or perhaps most patients in the short term, years later the corneas of almost all of these patients became increasingly distorted and dry creating a visual nightmare for millions of patients. Some of the complications created by Radial Keratotomy include: blurred and distorted vision, ocular pain, unstable vision and chronic dry eye.

 

Over the years I have examined thousands of patients adversely affected by Radial Keratotomy surgery. All of these patients were fit with custom designed gas permeable scleral lenses. When properly designed and fit, scleral lenses have dramatically improved the vision and ocular comfort of virtually all of these patients who suffered ocular damage due to Radial Keratotomy. Scleral lenses do not touch the cornea. Instead, scleral lenses are designed to vault over the cornea and come to rest on the white portion of the eye known as the sclera. A liquid reservoir exists between the back surface of the scleral lens and the front surface of the cornea. In other words, the front surface of the eye is always in a liquid environment. Because the corneas are distorted often with open RK cuts, the scleral lens will protect the ocular surface from the blinking action of the eyelids.

The attached photos are of corneas adversely affected by Radial Keratotomy surgery.