COMPARISON OF TWO OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY DEVICES IN CORNEAL EPITHELIAL THICKNESS MAPS

Aim of this study is to assess agreement and repeatability of epithelial thickness measurements using two optical coherence tomography devices in healthy and keratoconus eyes. Secondary objective was to evaluate the differences between healthy and keratoconus eyes using these epithelial thickness map data.

Vienna Institute for Research in Ocular Surgery, Hanusch Hospital, Vienna, Austria 

In this prospective monocentric study that included patients divided into two groups: patients with keratoconus, the study group and a control group of patients without corneal pathologies scheduled for cataract surgery. For each patient only one eye was included and corneal measurements were performed, focused on the corneal epithelial thickness. Two devices were used in the study: the Anterion (Heidelberg Engineering) using swept-source optical coherence tomography and the MS-39 (CSO) using spectral domain optical coherence tomography combined with Placido disc topography. The corneal epithelial thickness was measured as the distance between the air-tear and the epithelium-Bowman interfaces. Each patient was measured three times with both devices. The order of measurements was randomised.  

In total 50 eyes of 50 patients were included, comprised of 20 eyes with diagnosed keratoconus and a control group with 30 healthy corneas. The mean age of patients included in the study group was 40.9 ± 14.6 and 69.8 ± 10.4 for the control group. The MS-39 showed a high repeatability in both keratoconus and healthy eyes. Final results will be presented.

Anterior segment OCT appears to be a valuable tool for assessing epithelial thickness in human eyes. The reproducibility of the thickness measurements was found to be high.