Corrective Stability And Corneal Epithelial Thickness Remodelling Following Allogeneic Lenticule Implantation For Moderate To High Hyperopia

To evaluate corrective stability and epithelial thickness remodeling characteristics after femtosecond laser-assisted allogeneic lenticule intrastromal keratoplasty (LIKE) procedure correcting moderate to high hyperopia.

This was a prospective study performed in Guangdong province of China.

The outcomes were evaluated with standard refractive surgery reports, which also included an assessment of corrective stability based on spherical equivalent (SEQ) and corneal keratometry from 3-month to beyond 6-month after surgery. Preoperative and postoperative epithelial thickness maps with a diameter of 9 mm were collected by anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT), which can automatically analyze the epithelial thickness in four annular regions centered on corneal vertex through the built-in analysis system. Additionally, our newly developed program can analyze the epithelial thickness in 9 ring-annular regions with a span of 1 mm, centered on the effective optical zone in a semi-automatic method.

For 20 eyes were treated by LIKE, attempted SEQ was +6.09D±0.91 D (range: +4.50 to +7.50 D). AS-OCT automatically measured epithelial thickness within central 5mm of cornea after LIKE procedure was significantly thinner (4~5μm), and there was no significant difference in change of epithelial thickness at peripheral zone (5~9mm). According to semi-automatic analysis, epithelial thickness within central 6mm of effective optical zone after LIKE was significantly thinned (3~5μm), and the epithelial thickness was significantly thickened (≈2μm) in the peripheral ring regions (6~8mm). Neither postoperative epithelial thickness nor change of epithelial thickness after LIKE was correlated significantly with the attempted SEQ.

LIKE has the potential for stability after correcting moderate to high hyperopia, which may be related to the relatively gentle epithelial remodeling postoperatively. The semi-automatic analysis of epithelial thickness centered on optical zone can better reflect the characteristics of epithelial remodeling after LIKE.