In my practice, every day that I am operating I usually have a few patients with prior radial keratotomy (RK) who are undergoing cataract surgery with me. While half of these patients come from California, the other half are from out of state or even from other countries. Radial keratotomy was a procedure used in the 1980s and early 1990s to address myopia by making incisions in the cornea which induced central flattening. It certainly worked, though it seems crude when compared to today’s laser technology for keratorefractive surgery, and patients were generally happy for many years. These radial incisions tended to continue to cause further central corneal flattening over time and these patients who were previously myopic, then emmetropic after RK, drifted into hyperopia which kept progressing. The patient in this video was -4 of myopia before RK, then plano for many years, and at the time of cataract surgery was +3 of hyperopia. Over the past 25+ years, I have done cataract surgery for more than 1000 RK patients and these are the secrets to the IOL calculations in these cases.
This video will explain each of these 6 critical points in detail so that you understand how to perform accurate IOL calculations to give your patients the best visual outcome.
