LASIK eye surgery is a type of corrective laser eye surgery. There are a number of different types of laser eye surgery, including LASIK, PRK, LASEK, ALK, RLE, EpiLasik and Intacs. The type of laser eye surgery you need depends on the health of your eyes, although LASIK eye surgery is by far the most common type of laser eye surgery.
Another type of LASIK eye surgery is wavefront-guided LASIK. Wavefront-guided LASIK is a variation of traditional LASIK surgery that applies a spatially varying correction to the eye, rather than a single correction. The excimer laser is guided with measurements from a wavefront sensor. The goal with wavefront-guided LASIK is usually for “optically perfect” vision.
Another variation is epi-LASIK or epithelial LASIK. This uses an epikeratome, a similar surgical tool to the microkeratome oscillating blade used for LASIK. The epikeratome uses a blunt separator rather than a sharp blade to separate the surface sheet of epithelial cells from the permanent corneal tissue. Epi-LASIK is suited to those people whose corneas are too flat for traditional LASIK.