Purpose: To compare the efficacy, predictability, safety, and induced higher-order aberrations (HOAs) between wavefront-guided and non-wavefront-guided photorefractive keratectomy (PRK).
Methods: The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PubMED, and EMBASE were searched for randomized controlled trials. Trials meeting the selection criteria were quality appraised, and data was extracted by 2 independent authors. Measures of association were pooled quantitatively using meta-analytical methods. Comparisons between wavefront-guided and non-wavefront-guided ablations were made as pooled odds ratios (ORs) or weighted mean differences. The pooled ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed for efficacy, safety, and predictability. The weighted mean differences and 95% CIs were used to compare induced HOAs.
Results: The study covered five trials involving 298 eyes. After wavefront-guided PRK, the pooled OR of achieving an uncorrected distance visual acuity of 20/20 (efficacy) was 1.18 (95% CI, 0.53-2.60; p = 0.69), the pooled OR of achieving a result within ±0.50 diopter of the intended target (predictability) was 0.86 (95% CI, 0.40-1.84; p = 0.70). No study reported a loss of 2 or more lines of Snellen acuity (safety) with either modality. In eyes with wavefront-guided PRK, the postoperative trefoil aberrations (mean difference -0.02; 95% CI, -0.03 to -0.00; p = 0.03) were significantly lower. There were no significant differences between the two groups in the postoperative total HOAs (mean difference -0.04; 95% CI, -0.23 to 0.14; p = 0.63), spherical (mean difference 0.00; 95% CI, -0.08 to 0.09; p = 0.93), and coma (mean difference -0.06; 95% CI, -0.14 to 0.03; p = 0.20) aberrations.
Conclusions: According to the meta-analysis, wavefront-guided PRK offered no advantage in efficacy, predictability, or safety measures over non-wavefront-guided PRK, although it may have induced fewer trefoil aberrations.