Diagnostic Accuracy Of Corneal And Epithelial Thickness Map Parameters To Detect Keratoconus 、Subclinical And Suspect Keratoconus

To investigate the diagnostic value of corneal and epithelial thickness maps established by anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) in suspected, subclinical and keratoconus.

Prospective study

41 patients (61 eyes) with suspected keratoconus, 30 patients (30 eyes) with subclinical keratoconus, 23 patients (30 eyes) with keratoconus, and 25 patients (50 eyes) with myopia who underwent corneal refractive surgery in the Refractive Surgery Department of Shanxi Eye Hospital from March 2023 to December 2023 were collected. All participants received AS-OCT examination. The central corneal thickness (CCT), central epithelial thickness (CET), specific area corneal epithelial thickness, corneal thickness mapping parameters  and corneal epithelial thickness mapping parameters were measured by AS-OCT. ANOVA was used to analyze the data,ROC was used to test the diagnostic performance of parameters with significant differences.

The S ET of the normal group and suspected group was thinner than that of I ET, and the S ET of the keratoconus group was thicker than that of I ET, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05).ROC of corneal thickness parameters showed that the diagnostic efficacy AUC of S-I CT, Min-Max CT and SN-IT CT in distinguishing suspected group and normal group were 0.85, 0.835 and 0.817, respectively;the diagnostic efficacy AUC of MIN CT and CCT in distinguishing subclinical group and normal group were 0.892 and 0.874, respectively. The ROC curve analysis of corneal epithelial thickness mapping parameters showed that MSD ET had the highest diagnostic efficacy for distinguishing keratoconus and normal groups, with an AUC of 0.91.

The corneal thickness mapping parameters derived from OPTOVUE OCT have high diagnostic accuracy for the suspected group, subclinical group and keratoconus group. The corneal epithelial thickness mapping parameters also have high diagnostic accuracy for the keratoconus group, and have certain diagnostic value for the suspected group and subclinical group.