OBJECTIVE To describe the different formulas that try to overcome the problem of calculating the intraocular lens (IOL) power in patients that underwent corneal refractive surgery (CRS). METHODS A Pubmed literature search review of all published articles, on keyword associated with IOL power calculation and corneal refractive surgery, as well as the reference lists of retrieved articles, was performed. RESULTS A total of 33 peer reviewed articles dealing with methods that try to overcome the problem of calculating the IOL power in patients that underwent CRS were found. According to the information needed to try to overcome this problem, the methods were divided in two main categories: 18 methods were based on the knowledge of the patient clinical history and 15 methods that do not require such knowledge. The first group was further divided into five subgroups based on the parameters needed to make such calculation. CONCLUSIONS In the light of our findings, to avoid postoperative nasty surprises, we suggest using only those methods that have shown good results in a large number of patients, possibly by averaging the results obtained with these methods.