EFFECT OF INCISION DIRECTION ON REFRACTIVE OUTCOME AFTER RADIAL KERATOTOMY

PURPOSE: Radial keratotomy incisions can be made centripetally or cent rifugally. The benefits and effects of both techniques have been dispu ted since American surgeons began performing RK in the late 1970s, We examined the RK database of a single surgeon to determine if incision direction was associated with refractive outcome, METHODS: Stepwise re gression was employed to select the important predictors of refraction change in the population, In addition to incision direction, variable s eligible for entry into the model were optic clear zone diameter, in cision number, patient age, corneal curvature and planned incision dep th, RESULTS: All variables except for planned incision depth and corne al power entered the model. CONCLUSIONS: The results were consistent w ith previous investigations that found incision number, optic clear zo ne diameter and patient age important predictors of outcome. We also f ound incision direction to be a significant predictive variable with c entripetal incisions decreasing myopia 0.6 diopters more than centrifu gal incisions.