Photorefractive keratectomy for myopia in the setting of Thygeson's superficial punctate keratitis.

PURPOSE: To describe a patient with Thygeson's superficial punctate keratitis who underwent photorefractive keratectomy for the correction of myopia.

METHODS: A 49-year-old woman with unilateral Thygeson's keratitis was examined before and after photorefractive keratectomy.

RESULTS: A myopic patient underwent photorefractive keratectomy in the left eye and gained 20/20 uncorrected visual acuity. Seventeen months after surgery, symptomatic Thygeson's keratitis lesions recurred in the peripheral but not the central cornea.

CONCLUSION: Photorefractive keratectomy reliably corrected myopia in a patient with previous Thygeson's keratitis. The recurrence of lesions only in the peripheral untreated cornea suggests that the inflammatory signal in Thygeson's keratitis may reside in the superficial corneal stroma.