GLYCEROL TO PREVENT CORNEAL HAZE POST PHOTOREFRACTIVE KERATECTOMY SURGERY IN HIGH DIOPTERS: BIOCHEMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS.

The purpose of this study is to find an effective treatment without corneal haze in patients with high diopters and/or thin corneas; the idea is to offer them a safe surgical refractive treatment to improve their visual acuity (VA) without the use of intraocular implants for higher diopters avoiding therefore any associated risk. A retrospective, observational and descriptive case series included 75 eyes with ametropias with spherical equivalents the lowest -5.00 Diopters, the highest -22.00 Diopters who underwent photorefractive keratectomy. They were treated additionally with mitomycin 0.02%, contact lens, tobramycin/dexamethasone, and sodium hyaluronate for seven days. Upon removal of the contact lens, they were treated with glycerol 0.9% and sodium hyaluronate three times a day for two months. The 75 eyes included had a preoperative visual capacity was of 1.57 logMAR (SD 0.5), and postoperative of 0.1 logMAR (SD .12) (T test for paired samples, p=000) (FIGURE 2). Preoperative pachymetry was of 564.7 (SD 43.3) and postoperative of 449.1 micra (SD 55.9), (T test for paired samples, p=0.000). There were 5 cases of haze at the first postoperative month, no case of haze was presented at 3, 6 and 12 months of follow-up. This study shows that the use of glycerol is an effective treatment as an adjuvant to prevent haze; based on its osmolarity, hygroscopic capacity and its protein stabilizing properties.