Estimation Of Corneal Epithelial Thickness Distribution Between Eyes With Refractive Errors And Healthy Eyes In Saudi Population

The purpose of this study is to assess the corneal epithelial thickness in Saudi population and to determine its relationship with corneal thickness ,corneal curvature and refractive error.

King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital ,Riyadh ,Saudi Arabia 

This study is cross-sectional. 100 patients with refractive error and 50 emmetrope subjects was enrolled.patients between age18-45years ,presented to Cornea clinic for the management of refractive error was asked to join the study.Patients with forme frust keratoconus wereincluded.Patients with corneal scars,previous refractive surgery, keratoconus ,Glaucoma ,active VKC or active ocular surface disease were excluded.All patients had refractive surgery workup which includes refraction, corneal tomography by Pentacam, slit lamp examination and dilated funds exam.Additional investigations included axial length measurement and Epithelial thickness map using high resolution OCT-based tomographyMS-39

Two hundrad eyes of 100 patients and 100eyes of 50volunteers were enrolled.The mean age of participants 26.9 ±5.3 (19-45)years old.Ninety-one subjects(79.8%)were females.Among cases presented for refractive surgery,thinner epithelium observed in all zones compared to control group.No difference in the mean central corneal epithelial thickness between eyes planned for refractive surgery correction(51.98±3.8)and emmetropic eyes (52.54±3.0)(p-value=0.4).Based on gender,thicker corneal epithelium was observed in males compared to females in all zones(p-value <0.0001).No difference in various corneal epithelial zones between those aged less than30 and those30 years old and above was observed(p-value≥0.2)

OCT based tomography demonstrated that the epithelial thickness is different between sexes,slightly thinner in cases with refractive errors compared to emmetropic eyes. Age in this study play little or no role in influencing the corneal epithelial thickness.Therefore, future studies should analyze corneal epithelial thickness in various age groups.