-- What Are the Success Rates? --
As you may have heard, the success rates for lasik eye surgery are getting better as the years go by. New technology and more experienced surgeons have contributed to this. Since you′re looking into solutions for your own eyes, you′ll want to know just what the success rates are.
There have been several studies conducted to determine how well patients do with lasik eye surgery. One study was done on patients who had surgery between the years 2000 and 2003. The study followed the patients to see what their corrected vision would be.
Of all the patients, 86% ended up with vision that was 20/20 or better. This proves that lasik can be very effective for many people. Besides this figure, there was another. 98% of the patients had good enough vision to be legally able to drive, which is 20/40 vision.
Another study broke the subjects up into groups according to the condition they were having corrected. The group that was treated for nearsightedness had between 42% and about 85% of its patients with 20/20 vision or better. The same group had about 77% to over 99% with 20/40 vision or better.
The farsighted group didn′t fare as well. Their correction to 20/20 or better was between 49% and 58%. Yet, they were corrected into the 20/40 or better group 93% to 98% of the time.
The Council for Refractive Surgery Quality Assurance (CRSQA) sets standards for its members as to their success rates. They are expected to have at least 90% of their patients achieve vision of 20/40 or better.
The CRSQA also sees to it that their members′ patients don′t suffer severe complications more than 0.5% of the time. Even moderate visual disturbances such as haze or halos can only occur in 3% or less of the patients.
These figures are in line with statistics that show that less than 1% of patients do have vision threatening complications. Refractive eye surgeons in general report moderate complications up to 5% of the time. However, these numbers go down the more experienced your surgeon is.
Dry eye is another problem faced after lasik surgery. While some 50% of all patients report dry eye during the first few months after surgery, that isn′t the whole story. By the end of a year, most of these situations have resolved themselves.
Success with lasik surgery is not 100% guaranteed. You do have a very good chance of having excellent results, though. The best thing to increase your probability of success is to get an experienced and qualified surgeon.