Photorefractive keratectomy in 22 adult eyes with infantile nystagmus syndrome

PURPOSE: To analyze visual and refractive outcomes of photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) in adult patients with infantile nystagmus syndrome. SETTING: Ophthalmology Unit, Department of Experimental Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Saint Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. DESIGN: Retrospective case series. METHODS: Photorefractive keratectomy was performed in both eyes of patients with infantile nystagmus syndrome under topical anesthesia using an eye-tracking excimer laser. Patient satisfaction was tested using a questionnaire. The main outcomes were a decrease in refractive error, an improvement in postoperative corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA), and an uncorrected distance visual acuity (UDVA) equal to or better than the preoperative UDVA. RESULTS: Twenty-two eyes of 11 patients with infantile nystagm us syndrome were evaluated. The mean patient age was 30.82 years (range 22 to 42 years). All eyes had simple, compound, or mixed astigmatism (mean -3.40 D; range -0.75 to -6.00 diopters [D]). The mean postoperative astigmatism (-0.70 D +/- 0.81 [SD]) and spherical equivalent (-0.420 +/- 0.652 D) were statistically significantly better than the preoperative values (-3.40 +/- 1.31 D and -3.426 +/- 3.343 D, respectively (P < .0001 and P = .0002, respectively). The mean monocular postoperative CDVA (0.24 +/- 0.19 logMAR) and UDVA (0.25 +/- 0.18 logMAR) were better than the mean preoperative CDVA (0.32 +/- 0.28 logMAR) (P = .0045 and P = .0338, respectively). The mean binocular postoperative UDVA was better than the mean preoperative CDVA (0.15 +/- 0.14 logMAR versus 0.23 +/- 0.23 logMAR) (P = .05). No patient required repeat surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Nystagmus patients are eligible for PRK. The results were promising; gaining a few Snellen lines in visual acuity can be very important to these patients for their daily life.