ABSTRACT
A. INTRODUCTION Refractive surgery has rapidly evolved over the last decade, with LASIK emerging as the procedure of choice for most degrees of myopia and hyperopia. One reason for this rapid acceptance is that patient satisfaction is very high, with excellent visual results. The safety has also proven to be quite high, especially in the hands of experienced surgeons. It is also extremely convenient for patients in that the visual recovery is very rapid, typically allowing a return to work within 24 hours. This has lead to the predominance of LASIK patients choosing to have both eyes operated on at the same surgical setting. In this situation one eye has surgery and the second eye follows a few minutes later. This should probably be termed bilateral sequential same-day surgery, but in keeping with common terminology we will refer to this as bilateral simultaneous surgery. In addition, we will refer to staged surgery where the eyes are operated on in separate sessions, whether they be separated by days or months, as bilateral sequential surgery. There is still, though, quite a bit of controversy concerning whether LASIK should be done in both eyes on the same day, or whether the second eye should be delayed until the first has healed.
