Cerebral Palsy with Lasik Equals Decentered Ablation

This 25 year old patient underwent 2 separate LASIK surgeries in each eye. Long before undergoing LASIK surgery she was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. Her LASIK surgeon told her that Cerebral Palsy was not a contra indication to LASIK and that his daughter suffered from the same condition. Look carefully at the photo of this young woman. Note that her right eye is deviating outward (to her right). This is called strabismus. She does not have proper control of her eye movements and either eye can deviate outward without her being aware. In addition she is not able to fixate on an object for any length of time. When undergoing LASIK it is important that the patient fixate on a light while the laser is being used. This young woman was not able to do this and as a result the treatment zone is off centered as can be seen in this corneal topography . Look carefully at the corneal topography seen below. The oval shaped blue area is the treatment zone. This should coincide with the visual line of sight which is over the pupil. Note that it is off to the side. As a result this patient has poor vision indoors, at night and in low light environments. Again, look carefully and you can see the scleral lenses over her eyes. With the scleral lenses she is able to see clearly indoors and at night. While I feel that LASIK should not be done on anyone, if there ever was a patient who would be a terrible candidate for LASIK, it is this young woman.