This article was published in the Cataract and Refractive Surgery Today Europe talking about how the combined procedure of Topography-Guided Transepithelial PRK and Crosslinking helps to strengthen the cornea and regularize the anterior surface.
2 cases were presented in this paper.
Case 1 involved a 36-year-old woman with keratoconus who had worn rigid gas permeable contact lenses for 20 years was found to have contact-lens intolerance. Cross-linking was done first, followed by the T-CAT Trans-epithelial PRK later.
Case 2 involved a 26-year-old woman with a 10-year history of keratoconus who became contact lense intolerant 1.5 years ago. T-CAT Trans-epithelial PRK was first done, followed by immediate application of cross-linking.
It was concluded that treatment of keratoconus with a combination of CXL and Excimer laser topography-guided transepithelial PRK is possible. The aim of this combined treatment is regularization of the cornea and significant reduction of irregular astigmatism rather than complete elimination of spherical refractive error. However, it should be noted that this form of treatment is more suitable for thicker corneas or done at earlier stages of keratoconus.