LASIK flap complications infrequent but can lead to aborted procedures

NEW YORK — Abandoned LASIK flap procedures due to complications are uncommon, but a second surgery can still result in positive outcomes for patients if surgeons optimize timing and their surgical technique, a speaker said here. “The good news is even when we experience these significant complications at the time of LASIK elective procedures, we can tell our patients that we can still get them good outcomes. While we have to wait a little bit longer for microkeratome flaps to maybe stabilize, the nice thing that we looked at with the femto flaps is that refractions are very stable at 1 week. If it’s not, certainly don’t proceed and wait for refractive stability. But if it is, then our patients actually did very well with a surface ablation procedure,” Priyanka Sood, MD, said at OSN New York 2016.