Efficacy of corneal cooling on postoperative pain management after photorefractive keratectomy: A contralateral eye randomized clinical trial

Purpose to compare chilled and room temperature balanced salt solution (bss) and bandage contact lens (bcl) on post photorefractive keratectomy (prk) pain. methods in a prospective,single-masked,controlled eye study,one hundred eyes of fifty patients were divided into two groups which received room temperature or chilled bss and bcl in each eye,and compared for post-prk pain. three different pain evaluation systems were used to evaluate pain between the groups at 1 and 6 h and days 1,2,3,5,and 7,postoperatively. results 15 patients were male (30%),and 35 were female (70%). the mean age was 29 ± 5 (20–40) y/o. the mean spherical equivalent (se) of preoperative refractive error in both groups was not statistically significantly different (−4.18 ± 1.5 in chilled and −4.19 ± 1.7 in room-temperature groups,respectively; p = 0.94). the mean time of epithelial healing was 6.16 ± 1.7 (3–13) days in the chilled and 6.10 ± 1.59 (3–12) in the room temperature group (p = 0.32). best corrected visual acuity (bcva) at 1 month was 0.013 ± 0.03 (0–0.22) logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logmar) in the chilled group and 0.014 ± 0.04 (0–0.22) logmar in the room temperature group,postoperatively (p = 0.84). no statistically significant difference was found between the two groups by any of the three pain scoring systems. no clinically important corneal haziness was found in the groups during follow-up. conclusion chilled bss and bcl do not seem to be superior to room temperature in reducing post-prk pain. © 2017 iranian society of ophthalmology