Title: Effects of cooling cornea by Low-Temperature Saline Washing on postoperative pain in Photorefractive Keratectomy

Authors: Zhengjun Fan, Yuan Gao, Zehao Jia, Youping Deng, Dequan Chen

Addresses: Department of Ophthalmology, Navy General Hospital, 6 Fucheng Road, Haidian Qu, Beijing 100048, China. ' Department of Ophthalmology, Navy General Hospital, 6 Fucheng Road, Haidian Qu, Beijing 100048, China. ' Department of Ophthalmology, Navy General Hospital, 6 Fucheng Road, Haidian Qu, Beijing 100048, China. ' Department of Internal Medicine, Rush University Cancer Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. ' Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN 55905, USA

Abstract: Several studies have reported that cooling cornea has effects on alleviating pain post Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK). However, our random prospective self-control study using 52 eyes of 26 myopic patients revealed that there was no significant statistical difference (P > 0.74) in the postoperative pains at both day-1 and day-3 between the experimental eye group (26 myopic eyes, treated with chilled lactated Ringer|s saline of 4°C) and the control eye group (26 self control eyes, treated with lactated Ringer|s saline of ˜20°C). The result suggests that applying low-temperature balanced saline solution onto corneal surfaces is not an effective analgesia for PRK surgery.

Keywords: PRK surgery; photorefractive keratectomy; LASIK; laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis; post-operative pain; lactated Ringer|s saline; Wilcoxon signed-rank test; saline washing; cornea cooling; eyes; myopic patients; chilled saline; corneal surfaces; analgesia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFIPM.2010.039122

International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalised Medicine, 2010 Vol.3 No.3, pp.228 - 235

Received: 03 Jan 2011
Accepted: 24 Jan 2011
Published online: 17 Mar 2011 *

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