Radial Keratotomy (RK)

Radial Keratotomy (RK) is an older procedure than LASIK and is no longer performed by most surgeons.

RK dates back to Russia in the 1970s. It was discovered by accident when a boy fell off his bicycle and broke his glasses. Some glass had to be removed from one eye by an eye doctor named Svyatoslav Fyodorov.

This was a situation for improvisation and Fyodorov extracted the glass by making radial cuts at the edges of the boy’s cornea like bicycle wheel spokes. Later when the cuts had healed, the boy came back to tell Fyodorov that he could now see clearly in that eye. His myopia had inadvertently been corrected because the cuts had flattened the corneal curvature.

RK Evolution

Technology advanced and a precisely calibrated diamond knife became the implement of choice instead of a metal knife. After trying incisions at different depths, it was determined among eye surgeons in Russia and the U.S. that they should be made fairly deeply into the stroma, (the middle corneal layer) for best effectiveness.

Eye doctors also worked on reducing the number of incisions necessary. They tried using four, eight, 16 and 32 incisions and established four as the most efficient number. During the 1980s RK was a popular procedure and each eye surgeon who performed it had his own style. Incisions varied as to length, depth, and arrangement.

Many RK patients of the 1980s have since been to eye surgeons for further vision correction – to control previous over-correction or to treat astigmatism. RK patients who develop cataracts or presbyopia, present eye surgeons with a unique problem because the corneas of these patients are unstable.

If you had an RK procedure years ago and now need further eye care, please contact a qualified eye surgeon in your area.