Recent study will dispel the fears of people regarding the damaging effect of various vision-correction procedures on cornea. Some people believed that laser eye surgery that corrects vision could lead to later problems with the cornea.

Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, studied the effect of two popular laser vision-correction procedures, photorefractive keratectomy, or PRK, and laser in situ keratomileusis, or LASIK, on cornea.

Sanjay V. Patel and William M. Bourne studied 29 eyes of 16 patients who had undergone either of the two vision-correction procedures. The photographs of the endothelial cells lining the corneas before and nine years after surgery were analyzed.  

Doctors found that after nine years, there was a 5.3 percent reduction in the density of corneal endothelial cells in the eyes of patients treated either with PRK or LASIK.

However 0.6 percent per year, the endothelial density loss on average was same in the eyes of persons not treated by laser surgery.

Doctors said, "Our results support the findings of numerous short-term studies that found no significant endothelial cell loss after LASIK and PRK."