Therapeutic Effect of Recurrent Corneal Erosion by Nd: YAG Anterior Stromal Puncture

ABSTRACT

Many conventional treatments of recurrent corneal erosion have been reported to yield varying degrees of effect. Epithelial basement menmbranectomy, microdiathermy or needle anterior stromal puncture, and excimer laser phototherapeutic keratectomy have recently been proposed as new treatments for recalcitrant cases of recurrent corneal erosion. We used the Nd:YAG laser to perform anterior stromal puncture of evaluation of therapeutic effects and several advantages effects over conventional treatments. For this purpose, we performed retrospective review of medical records of 7 patients who had been confirmed to have recurrent corneal erosion and given a trial of the Nd:YAG laser anterior stromal puncture due to two or more recurrences in spite of conventional treatments from January 1996 to December 1997. The mean recurrence rate of erosion before anterior stromal puncture and the mean trial number were 1 time(ranging from 1 to 2 times) per month and 4.7 times(ranging from 1 to 10 times), respectively. There were no recurrences after the laser trial in all 7 patients. Compared with various conventional treatments, this study showed the Nd:YAG laser anterior stromal puncture may obtain more permanent healing in mild to moderate epithelial basement membrane dystrophy and traumatic recurrent corneal erosion.