Myopia, and high myopia especially, is a risk factor for retinal detachment, as Dr Yong Ming previously covered. People with myopia are 4 times more likely to develop a retinal detachment.
Myopic people are the ones who go for LASIK – I think you can see where I’m going with this.
It’s difficult to establish causation – ie it may be a patient’s preexisting myopia that caused the retinal detachment, and not LASIK. These people with myopia may have got a retinal detachment anyway, whether or not they had LASIK surgery.
Furthermore, there haven’t been any large scale, well-conducted studies to confirm an association between LASIK and retinal detachment. The best study I found was this retrospective study following 11,594 eyes for 10 years post-LASIK, of which 19 patients developed retinal detachment. The risk of detachment after 10 years post-LASIK was 0.19%.
If you’d like more numbers, based on a review of available studies in 2009, the incidence rates for retinal detachment in myopic eyes after LASIK have also been reported at between 0.22% to 0.25%.
To sum up, the risk of retinal detachment in the long term after LASIK is very low, and there is no clear association between the two in the first place.
Nevertheless, if it’s a particular concern of yours, do highlight this during the consult with your ophthalmologist.
Besides advise (after assessing your risk factors), all opthalmologists also thoroughly check your retina before LASIK, to ensure that there are no problems with your retina, or any signs of retinal detachment.
Cheers
