Prophylactic Effects of Mitomycin-C on Regression and Haze Formation in Photorefractive Keratectomy

Purpose: to study the effect of prophylactic application of mitomycin-c on regression and corneal haze formation after photorefractive keratectomy (prk) for high myopia. methods: fifty-four eyes of 28 high myopic patients were enrolled in this prospective study. all eyes underwent prk with application of 0.02% mitomycin-c for two minutes and irrigation with 15-20 ml of normal saline. follow-up visits were scheduled for the first 7 days and 1,3 and 6 months after surgery. hanna grading (in the scale of 0 to 4+) was used to assess corneal haze.results: mean spherical equivalent refraction (se) was -7.08 ± 1.11 diopters (d), preoperatively. all eyes were examined on the first 7 days and one month after surgery; 48 eyes (88.9%) were evaluated 3 and 6 months post-surgery. six months after surgery, all eyes had uncorrected visual acuity (ucva) of 20/40 or better and 37 eyes (77.1 %) achieved ucva of 20/20 or better, 45 eyes (93.7%) had se within ±1.00d of emmetropia. one month postoperatively, 2 eyes (3.7%) had grade 0.5 haze, while at 3and 6 months after surgery no visited eye had haze at all. there was no decrease in best corrected visual acuity after 6 months. in spatial frequencies of 6 and 12 cycle/degree, contrast sensitivity decreased immediately after prk but increased to the preoperative values by the 6th postoperative month. conclusions: mitomycin-c can prevent the development of corneal haze when treating high myopia with prk. in patients with insufficient corneal thickness for laser in situ keratomileusis (lasik), mitomycin-c makes a useful adjunct to prk to provide an alternative treatment for myopia. however, further research with longer follow-up is suggested.