Can a scar on the eye be removed with laser surgery?

07 Dec Can a scar on the eye be removed with laser surgery?

I assume you mean a scar on the cornea of the eye.

To a large degree a fibrotic scar can be removed with an excimer or femtosecond laser. But it depends on how deep the scar is and also how close to the line of vision through the cornea. It is not possible to simply remove the scar tissue alone because the corneal tissue immediately adjacent to the scar will also be removed. If a scar is fairly superficial and one is simultaneously removing other corneal tissue by design (such as in LASIK or PRK), the results can be excellent. But if removing a scar involves removing normal adjacent cornea, it could also create corneal irregularities. These could simultaneously affect the focusing power of the cornea adversely.

_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. – Chief of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic