4 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) with excimer laser has been used successfully to treat myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism in adults for over 35 years. Children with high refractive errors that go untreated will develop severe amblyopia. PRK can normalize high refractive errors and potentially improve the visual acuity in affected children. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether children with high anisometropia or isoametropia with amblyopia that are nonresponsive to standard therapy and receive PRK develop better longterm visual acuity.
Aberrations are the spreading of light from a point focus. Aberrations of the eyes can be objectively evaluated with a wavefront aberrometer. Lower order aberrations such as defocus and astigmatism can be corrected with glasses and traditional/disposable soft contact lenses. Patients with ectatic corneal disease, such as keratoconus, or irregular astigmatism cause by surgery, trauma or disease, experience vision that is unlikely to be adequately corrected with glasses or disposable soft contact lenses due to higher order aberrations (HOA). HOA's cause halos, flare, glare, starbursts, doubling, smearing or ghosting of vision. Specialty contact lenses, such as scleral lenses, can be used to mask the irregularity of the cornea, reducing HOA's and improving vision. In many patients the resultant vision, though improved, still has some level of residual HOA's affecting the quality of vision. Custom scleral lenses with customized wavefront guided optics can be used to reduce residual HOA's and improve vision further. These lenses have been referred to as higher order aberration correcting scleral lenses or HOA correcting sclerals and wavefront guided scleral lenses or WFG sclerals.
The investigators are comparing outcomes of LASIK surgery using a high definition wavefront-guided laser to a wavefront-optimized laser in patients with nearsightedness with and without astigmatism.
The purpose of the study is to see if brighter lights will allow for shortening of the treatment time required to stabilize the eyes of patients with keratoconus or a bulging cornea. The investigators will be comparing the therapeutic effects of two different higher brightnesses of ultra violet light on a riboflavin treated eye. One light will be twice as bright as the other and the exposure time of these brighter lights to deliver equivalent energy to the cornea will be reduced from the standard 30 minutes to 10 and 5 minutes. Riboflavin is vitamin B2 and the investigators are trying to determine if an identical clinical effect can be achieved the brighter treatment lights are used for shorter times. The investigators will also monitor the clinical effect and the status of the cornea to see if additional risks are associated with the brighter light.