Comparison of astigmatic correction after femtosecond lenticule extraction and wavefront-guided LASIK for myopic astigmatism

PURPOSE: To compare postoperative astigmatic correction between femtosecond lenticule extraction (FLEx) and wavefront-guided LASIK in eyes with myopic astigmatism. METHODS: Fifty-eight eyes of 41 patients undergoing FLEx and 49 eyes of 29 patients undergoing wavefrontguided LASIK to correct myopic astigmatism were examined. Visual acuity, cylindrical refraction, predictability of the astigmatic correction, and astigmatic vector components were compared between groups 6 months after surgery. RESULTS: There was no statistically significant difference in manifest cylindrical refraction (P = .08) or percentage of eyes within ±0.50 diopter (D) of its refraction (P = .11) between the surgical procedures. The index of success in FLEx was statistically significantly better than that of wavefront-guided LASIK (P = .02), although there was no significant difference between the groups in other indices (eg, surgically induced astigmatism, target-induced astigmatism, astigmatic correction index, angle of error, difference vector, and flattening index). Subgroup analysis showed that FLEx had a better index of success (P = .02) and difference vector (P = .04) than wavefront-guided LASIK in the low cylinder subgroup; the angle of error in FLEx was significantly smaller than that of wavefront-guided LASIK in the moderate cylinder subgroup (P = .03). CONCLUSIONS: Both FLEx and wavefront-guided LASIK worked well for the correction of myopic astigmatism by the 6-month follow-up visit. Although FLEx had a better index of success than wavefront-guided LASIK when using vector analysis, it appears equivalent to wave-front-guided LASIK in terms of visual acuity and the correction of astigmatism.