Incidence and risk factors for retinal detachment following laser-assisted keratomileusis.

Purpose: The aim of this work was to study the incidence and potential risk factors for development of retinal detachment (RD) after laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) surgery over a long-term follow-up.

Methods: This was a retrospective interventional case series. A total of 694 eyes of 352 patients were included who had undergone LASIK surgery at a tertiary eye care institute between January 2005 and September 2015 who had a minimum follow-up of 5 years after the surgery were included. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportion regression model was used to estimate the potential risk factors and cumulative risk for the development of RD.

Results: Out of the total patients, 5 eyes developed RD after a mean follow-up of 7 years. The cumulative risk of RD after 1 year was 0.4%, after 2 years was 0.5% and after 7 years was 0.7%. Increased risk of RD was not associated with age at LASIK surgery, gender, laterality, and spherical equivalent (P > 0.05). A significantly increased risk for the development of RD was observed in eyes that were given prior prophylactic laser photocoagulation for peripheral lesions in multivariate cox proportional regression analysis with a hazard ratio (HR) of 9.33 (CI- 1.554-56.094; P = 0.015).

Conclusion: We emphasize the need for a regular follow-up after the LASIK procedure to ensure timely treatment of any new retinal lesions.