LASEK vs TRANSPRK and a note on Corneal Wound healing after EYE laser surgery

Hi readers

Since a good friend of mine just did LASEK surgery at the same clinic I did my TransPRK surgery last year I googled a bit on how these operations compare. Different researchers say different things, since I am not a eye researcher I will not try to form my own opinion, instead I will just summarize a few things I read.

Uncorrected Visual Acuity and Residual refractive error  - or how good will you see and how fast

I found  an interesting and recent study comparing LASEK and TransPRK recovery and results. Summary:

After 1 month 58% of TransPRK and 75% of LASEK patients could see 20/20 or better.
After 3 months 83% of TransPRK and 83% of LASEK patients could see 20/20 or better.
At 6 and 12 months 92% of TransPRK and 92% of LASEK patients could see 20/20 or better.

20/20 = Snellen 1.0.

So according to this study the end result is the same, but LASEK patients seems to recover a bit faster on average. The same study also says that the epithelium heels a bit faster in TransPRK (3 days) vs LASEK (4 days). The initial pain was also higher after TransPRK according to this study.

Residual refractive error also declined slightly faster in LASEK vs TransPRK, after 1 month 83% of TransPRK patients and 92% of LASEK patients was within +/-0.5 Dioptre but already from 3 months and forward 92% of patients are within +/-0.5 Dioptre for both types of surgeries.

Then I also found another similar study. Here the results were slightly different as you can see here. This study indicates that TransPRK patients recover there vision slightly faster then LASEK patients (in this study TransPRK = ASLA, LASEK = Alcohol PRK).

Regarding wound healing an interesting aspect is the dry eye symptoms often felt after eye laser surgery. The reason is likely that a lot of the Corneal nerves are also removed when doing the eye laser. Some interesting numbers from this study :

After PRK based surgeries (including LASEK and TransPRK) the nerve density was 59% of preoperative level at 1 year, and near 100% after 2 years. After LASIK based surgeries, the preoperative level is firstly reached after 5 years.

So according to this study I would now be on around 59% of my preoperative nerve density. Maybe this can explain why I still have slightly dry eyes around 1 year after TransPRK. I symptoms are slowly disappearing however, but maybe it will take the full 24 months until I am complete free or lubricating eye drops. Will keep you posted here on my blog.


My friend will soon post a more in depth article about the healing process, follow him here Ongoing LASEK recovery.