That's what a study in the August issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology has found.

Researchers in Tokyo studied the effects of LASIK surgery on people with varying degrees of dry eye. One group included 168 eyes in 111 people with definite dry eye, another had 300 eyes in 153 people with probable dry eye, and a third had 75 eyes in 49 people without dry eye.

The people in the study were tested for dry eye at one month, three, six and 12 months after they had LASIK surgery. Dryness was more severe at six months and 1 year for the definite and probable dry eye groups, the study found.

The study also found that tear function and ocular surface condition were more compromised in the people with definite dry eye, compared to the people with no dry eye.

LASIK surgery is done to correct refractive errors in the eye that require people to wear glasses or contact lenses. Some people decide to have LASIK because their dry eye symptoms make it uncomfortable for them to use contacts.

"With the proper ocular surface management, patients with dry eye can be good candidates for LASIK. However, our results also suggest that preexisting dry eye is a risk factor for severe postoperative dry eye with lower tear function, more vital staining of the ocular surface, and more severe dry eye symptoms until 1 year after LASIK," the authors write.

More information

Find out more about dry eye.