PURPOSE: To verify the morning to evening variations of refraction, visual acuity, intraocular pressure and biomechanical parameters on patients operated by radial keratotomy who presented for refractive re-treatments; and to correlate the biomechanical parameters with refraction, visual acuity and their variations among morning and evening. METHODS: 19 patients were examined, respectively thirty-eight eyes in the morning (9 am) and evening (6 pm), recording sphere-cylindrical dynamic refraction, visual acuity (logMAR) without correction (AVsc) and corrected (AVcc) and ORA (Ocular Response Analyzer) parameters: corneal hysteresis (CH), corneal resistance factor (CRF), intraocular pressure calibrated for Goldmann (IOPg) e corneal compensated (IOPcc). Variables had no normal distribution (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test), so that the Wilcoxon signed rank was used for testing the significance on the differences for each variable between morning and afternoon. The Spearman test was used for assessing the correlations between the ORA parameters and refraction, visual acuity in the morning and afternoon, as well as to verify the correlations between the ORA parameters and the variations on refraction and visual acuity. RESULTS: Sphere (E), spherical equivalent (EE), defocus equivalent (ED), AVsc, IOPcc e IOPg varied significantly (Wilcoxon, p<0.05) between morning and evening. There was more hyperopia, worse visual acuity, higher pressure and lower CH in the morning measurements. In the morning measurements, there was a positive correlation (Spearman, p<0.05) between EE and ED and IOPcc (rs=0.39 and 0.34 respectively), but not with IOPg. In the evening measurement, there were no correlations between the refractive and pressure measurements. Negative correlations were observed (Spearman, p<0.05) between AVsc (logMAR) and CH in the morning and in the evening (rs= -0.48 e rs= -0,51), between E and CH in the morning and in the evening (rs= -0.66 and -0.76), between E and CRF in the morning and in the evening (rs= -0.40 and -0.47), between EE and CH in the morning and in the evening (rs= -0.70 and -0.68), between EE and CRF in the morning and in the evening (rs= -0.41 and -0.46), between ED and CH in the morning and in the evening (rs= 0.64 and -0.54) and between ED and CRF in the morning and in the evening (rs= -0.35 and -0.34). There was a significant negative correlation between the morning measurement of CRF and the variation of defocus equivalent (p = 0.05; rs = -0.30) and the variation of AVsc (p = 0.04; rs = -0.33). CONCLUSION: More hyperopia was recorded in the morning which was associated with higher compensated pressure (IOPcc) but not with IOPg ten years after RK. Lower biomechanical parameters (CRF e CH) were associated with higher hyperopia and worse visual acuity. A trend was observed for having higher fluctuation on weaker corneas. New studies involving the variables derived from the waveform signals, beyond CH and CRF (derived from the applanation pressures) along with data from corneal tomography and wavefront aberrometry are necessary.
Keratototmy; radial; Hyperopia; Cornea; Refractive erros; Visual acuity
