Lasik leaves girl partially blind

NEW DELHI: If you''re going in for Lasik, make sure you''re in competent hands. A 22-year-old girl lost a large part of the cornea of one of her eyes to a post-Lasik inefction. A subsequent graft has replaced only 40 per cent of her vision.
Doctors at the Rajendra Prasad Ophthalmic Centre at AIIMS are not too sure about the long-term results. "There are chances of rejection in this patient as it is a large graft," says additional professor at the centre, Dr J S Titiyal."As of now, the future of this eye looks bleak."
The girl came to AIIMS in March this year from Guwahati, where the Lasik surgery had been performed. Eye specialists at AIIMS found a severe fungal infection under the flap that is lifted during surgery to slice off a part of the cornea for vision correction.
"We had to remove the entire infected area, clean it as it was full of pus and replace it with a large graft. She has lost around 60 per cent of her vision," Titiyal says.
Chairman, scientific committee, Intraocular Implant and Refractive Society of India, Dr Mahipal Sachdeva, points out that like any other surgical procedure, Lasik too has a risk of infection. The rate of infection varies between one in 1,000 and one in 4,000. But, he adds, this surgery is safe as the laser beam itself has a sterilising effect.
The specialists at AIIMS say the infection could be the result of the conditions in the operating theatre, which may not have been entirely aseptic.
"If she had come to us, we would not have performed Lasik on her," says professor at the R P Centre, Dr R B Vajpayee. He emphasises the "importance of pre-operative screening and proper case selection for this procedure to be successful and retain its good name".
The safety of Lasik had snowballed into a major controversy following a series of reports in The Times of India on its complications as it was being marketed as a safe procedure till then.