Assessment of dry eye after LASIK by real-time measurement of higher order aberrations variation

Purpose To evaluate tear break-up time (BUT) with real-time (RT) higher order wavefront aberrations (HOA) measurements in myopic patients after Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) surgery. Methods HOA up to the sixth order for a 4-mm pupil were measured in 20 normal subjects (Group 1) and in 20 myopic patients, with no history of dry eye (DE), before and after LASIK surgery (Group 2), using the IRX3 (Imagine Eyes, Orsay, France) Hartmann-Shack (H-S) aberrometer. The HOA measurements were performed (in triplicate) with a new dedicated software, once every second for up to 20 seconds. HOA variations were compared with the BUT by the conventional fluorescein method (CFM). Results Twenty percent of the patients from Group 2 were complaining from DE symptoms. There was an excellent correlation between the HOA variation and the BUT recorded by the CFM in both groups. Reproducibility of the HOA measurements in all subjects and patients was excellent. BUT was significantly decreased (P