To examine the refractive and visual outcome of laser-assisted subepithelial keratomileusis (LASEK) with mitomycin C(MMC) in eyes with myopic astigmatism ≥2.00 diopters (D). This study comprised 82 eyes of 82 consecutive patients (37 male, 45 female; mean age at surgery 34.7 ± 9.0 years) with preoperative topographic astigmatism ≥2.00 D and mean preoperative spherical equivalent (SE) -4.50 ± 1.13 D. To assess whether the refractive results differed with the amount of corrected sphere, the data were separated by preoperative SE thereby defining two groups with SE < -5.00 D (-2.00 to -4.75 D) and ≥-5.00 D (-5.00 to -7.75 D). Mean manifest refraction spherical equivalent (MRSE) of -0.39 ± 0.52 D was obtained at the 6-months (5.4 ± 1.6 months) follow-up. The results were within ±1.00 D of the attempted correction in 89 % of patients. The mean postoperative corrected distant visual acuity was -0.02 ± 0.065 logMAR (range -0.10 to 0.15 logMAR). Sixty-seven (81.7 %) of all eyes did not change lines in safety. There was no statistically significant difference (P = 0.262) in safety between the SE groups. Mean efficacy was 0.89 ± 0.27. There was a statistically significant difference in efficacy (P = 0.024) between the preoperative SE groups. Larger ablation zones were associated with better visual outcome, confirmed by safety, efficacy and predictability. The data reported here demonstrated that LASEK using a Zeiss MEL 80 excimer laser with an additional application of MMC is a safe and efficient technique with predictable results for the correction of eyes with myopic astigmatism ≥2.00 D.
