SBK LASIK is a minimally invasive LASIK technique popularized by Dr. Steven Slade of Houston, Texas and Dr. Daniel Durrie of Kansas City, Kansas. This technique strives to maintain the structural integrity of the cornea by avoiding disruption of the major structural components of the cornea thereby reducing the risk of corneal ectasia and dry eye. Corneal ectasia is one of the most serious complications of LASIK surgery. Corneal ectasia is an uncontrolled weakening and thinning of the cornea which leads to irregular astigmatism. Irregular Astigmatism is difficult to treat and in some cases requires corneal transplantation. Although there is active research in this area of corneal physiology, the exact cause of the condition is not known, however it appears to be aggravated by invasive corneal surgery such as LASIK. Corneal ectasia occurs in the general population in about 1 in 20,000 individuals who have not had refractive surgery. In many patients who have a tendency to develop ectasia there are clinical signs which can be detected in a standard LASIK screening evaluation. However there are still some individuals who do not display signs of corneal structural weakness and who subsequently develop ectasia after LASIK. At the present time it is not clear whether this subset of individuals would have developed corneal weakness whether or not they had LASIK surgery. Patients with clinical signs of corneal weakness at the time of LASIK screening exams are not candidates for LASIK surgery.
