Seven years experience with LASIK for myopia.

Purpose: This paper presents the results of the last seven years with LASIK for the treatment of myopia.

Methods: 4170 eyes of 3163 patients with a mean preoperative spherical equivalent--9.66 diopters were submitted to LASIK. The eyes were divided in three groups according to the preoperative refraction: Group A (-5 to 10D), group B (-10 to 16D) and group C (over -16 D).

Results: At one year the percentage of eyes within +/- 1D of emmetropia was the following: group A: 84.4%, group B: 70.8%, and group C: 42.8%.

Conclusions: The method is safe, effective, and predictable especially in the range of myopia between -5 and -15 D of myopia. Predictability could be further improved by secondary procedures.