Retreatment is the term used to describe a second surgery needed to correct residual refractive error after the initial LASIK treatment, says a study in the April issue of Opthalmology.

Researchers from Hackensack University Medical Center and the New Jersey School of Medicine looked at the results of LASIK surgery on 2,485 eyes of 1,308 people treated for nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism.

Out of that group, 288 eyes of 233 people had one retreatment and one eye in each of three patients required two retreatments.

Overall, the rate of retreatment after one year was 10.5 percent. The retreatment rate was 12.1 percent for nearsighted eyes and 6.2 percent for farsighted eyes.

The study also found that people older than 40 had much higher retreatment rates than people younger than 40. Those over 40 had a one-year retreatment rate of 14 percent, compared to 5 percent to 9 percent for people 18 to 40 years old.

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