Lasik surgery leaves girl partially blind

NEW DELHI: If you''re going in for Lasik make sure you''re in competent hands. For a 22-year-old girl has lost a large part of her cornea in one eye to an infection following Lasik. A subsequent graft has been able to replace only 40 per cent of the 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," said 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 can read only two to three lines. About 60 per cent of her vision has been lost at this young age," Titiyal said.
Chairman, scientific committee, Intraocular Implant and Refractive Society of India, Dr Mahipal Sachdeva, pointed out that like any other surgical procedure, Lasik too had a risk of infection.
The rate of infection varies between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 4,000. But, he adds, this surgery is safe as the laser beam itself has a sterilising effect.
The specialists at AIIMS said that the infection could be the result of the conditions in the operating theatre, which might not have been entirely aseptic. Other than that, the specialists said the girl had a problem of hyper thyroidism, a condition in which Lasik is ruled out completely.
"If she had come to us, we would not have performed Lasik for her," said professor at the R P Centre, Dr R B Vajpayee. Thyrotoxicosis is contraindicated in Lasik. He emphasised 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 very safe procedure till then.