Diagnostic performance of corneal epithelium- and Bowman's layer thickness mapping in patients with unilateral Keratoconus.

IF 2.4 3区医学 Q2 OPHTHALMOLOGY

Graefe’s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology Pub Date : 2025-01-30 DOI:10.1007/s00417-025-06750-8

Niklas Pircher, Raphael Kilian, Florian Beer, Ruth Donner, Philipp Roberts, Michael Pircher, Christoph K Hitzenberger, Julia Aschauer, Gerald Schmidinger, Jan Lammer

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the role of corneal epithelium- and Bowman's layer-thickness (ET and BLT) changes as possible early biomarkers of keratoconus (KC) development.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study patients with unilateral KC (UKC) and a group of healthy controls underwent polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) for the evaluation of corneal ET and BLT. These values were compared among three subgroups of eyes, i.e., eyes with KC, topographically and tomographically normal fellow eyes (FE) of patients with UKC, and healthy eyes (HE).

Results: Twelve patients with UKC (12 eyes with KC and 12 FE) and 21 healthy age-matched controls (HE) were included. While KC eyes showed the typical epithelial "doughnut pattern" on epithelial maps, there were no differences in ET between FE and HE. BLT was significantly higher in FE compared to HE (average BLT p = 0.049, minimum BLT p = 0.02, nasal-inferior quadrant p = 0.04) as weIl as KC eyes (average BLT p = 0.048, minBLT p = 0.04, nasal-inferior quadrant p = 0.03).

Conclusions: Increase in BLT seems to occur before epithelial thinning in FE of patients with UKC. Since many of KC patients develop the disease bilaterally, Bowman's layer thickening might represent an early biomarker of KC-development.

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来源期刊

Graefe’s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology 医学-眼科学

CiteScore

5.40

自引率

7.40%

发文量

398

审稿时长

3 months

期刊介绍： Graefe''s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology is a distinguished international journal that presents original clinical reports and clini-cally relevant experimental studies. Founded in 1854 by Albrecht von Graefe to serve as a source of useful clinical information and a stimulus for discussion, the journal has published articles by leading ophthalmologists and vision research scientists for more than a century. With peer review by an international Editorial Board and prompt English-language publication, Graefe''s Archive provides rapid dissemination of clinical and clinically related experimental information.