Relationship Between Anterior Scleral Thickness And Biomechanical Corneal Response

Published 2023 - 41st Congress of the ESCRS

Reference: PP12.12 | DOI: 10.82333/k623-7x34

Authors: Neus Burguera Giménez ¹ , Celeste Briceno Lopez ² , Mª Amparo Díez-Ajenjo ³ , Mª Jose Luque-Cobija ³ , Noemi Burguera ⁴ , Cristina Peris-Martinez* ⁵

¹Cornea and anterior segment,Fundación de Oftalmología Médica de la Comunitat Valenciana,Valencia,Spain;Optics, Optometry, and Visual Sciences,University of Valencia,Burjassot,Spain, ²Cornea and anterior segment,Fundación de Oftalmología Médica de la Comunitat Valenciana,Valencia,Spain;UVEG-Alcon Cathedra,Valencia,Spain;Optics, Optometry, and Visual Sciences,University of Valencia,Burjassot,Spain, ³Optics, Optometry, and Visual Sciences,University of Valencia,Burjassot,Spain;UVEG-Alcon Cathedra,Valencia,Spain, ⁴Ophthalmology department,Qvision, Vithas Virgen Del Mar Hospital,Almeria,Spain, ⁵Cornea and anterior segment,Fundación de Oftalmología Médica de la Comunitat Valenciana,Valencia,Spain;Surgery Department, Ophthalmology,School of Medicine, University of Valencia,Valencia,Spain;UVEG-Alcon Cathedra,Valencia,Spain

This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between anterior scleral thickness (AST) and corneal biomechanical response.

Fundación de Oftalmología Médica de la Comunitat Valencia (FOM)

Universitat de València

This prospective non-randomized study comprised 50 eyes of 50 healthy patients. All patients underwent a comprehensive ocular examination. Only eyes with axial length (AL) between 22-26 mm and spherical equivalent (SE)>-5.00D were included. AST was measured at four scleral meridians (nasal, temporal, superior and inferior) using an anterior segment swept source optical coherence tomography. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce linearly the dimensionality of seven biomechanical input metrics to two significant components, C1 and C2. Two multivariate analyses were performed to associate C1 and C2 with AST and ocular parameters. A partial correaltion controlling confounding ocular variables was also performed in C1 model.

The mean age was 29.02 ± 9.58 years. The mean SE error and AL were −1.04 ±1.51 D and 23.74 ± 1 mm, respectively. The PCA results showed that C1 and C2, which account for a cumulative 70.34% of the original biomechanical data set variability, have been extracted. C1 accounts for 53.84%, whereas C2 for the 16.51% of the total variance. The C1 was significantly linked with IOP, SE, age, gender, and AST over all regions (p < 0.001). C2 model was significantly associated with SE, CCT, and IOP (p < 0.001). The partial correlation of C1 model and AST was moderate in the nasal (r= −0.36, p < 0.001) and inferior (r= −0.26, p = 0.004) meridians, whereas weak in the temporal (r = −0.14, p = 0.05) and superior (r= −0.15, p = 0.05) meridians.

The relationship between the new biomechanical component and the AST provides the first evidence of the association of AST with the corneal response parameters which should be considered in corneal response interpretation. The AST association was especially with the biomechanical metrics related to the highest concavity moment and the speed of the ingoing and outgoing phase. Further investigations are required to generalize the findings of the current study.