Ascorbate prophylaxis with mitomycin-C for corneal haze after laser-assisted sub-epithelial keratectomy

Background: Corneal haze is a significant complication of photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and laser-assisted subepithelial keratectomy (LASEK). Objectives: To evaluate the effect of ascorbic acid supplementation in addition to perioperative topical mitomycin-C for the prevention of haze after LASEK. Methods: We performed a retrospective, non-randomized case series study of two groups of 48 consecutive patients (96 myopic eyes) who had LASEK surgery. The treatment group was given ascorbic acid (vitamin C) orally, 500 mg, twice daily from 1 week before to 2 weeks after surgery. The control group was not offered any additional treatment. Ascorbate supplementation was the only difference in the postoperative treatment protocol between the treatment and control groups. Haze was assessed on a scale from 0 to 4 at the 1 year visit. Results: Overall, 33.3% and 37.5% of the patients in the treatment and control groups respectively developed corneal haze. The trend of increased haze severity in the control group did not reach statistical significance. Conclusions: Our results showed that systemic ascorbate supplementation does not have an additional effect on the prevention of haze after LASEK compared to the effect of topical mitomycin-C alone.