Abstract
Purpose:
Corneal filaments (CF) or filamentary keratitis can clinically be classified into two types with regard to the localization of the CF; i.e., those that are likely to be localized on the corneal area behind the eyelids and/or those localized at the interpalpebral zone. The purpose of this present study was to investigate the difference of clinical features between the two types of CF: 1) CF located behind the eyelids (CFBE) and 2) CF located at the interpalpebral zone (CFIPZ).
Methods:
This study involved 32 eyes of 32 subjects (7 males, 25 females; mean age: 70 years) with CF, of which the CF types were categorized as either CFBE (15 eyes) or CFIPZ (17 eyes). In all 32 eyes, dry-eye-related symptoms using the visual analog scale (VAS, 100 mm maximum), tear meniscus radius (TMR, mm), spread grade (SG) of the tear film lipid layer [grades 1-4 (1 being the best grade)], fluorescein breakup time (FBUT, seconds), ocular surface epithelial damage (OSED) score (cornea: 15 points maximum, conjunctiva: 6 points maximum), and the Schirmer 1 test (ST1, mm) were examined.
Results:
In the comparison of each examination (CFBE; CFIPZ) between the CFBE and CFIPZ types of CF, statistically significant difference (p<0.05) was found in the dry-eye-related symptoms of discharge (20.4±25.8; 7.3±22.3) and blurred vision (23.6±17.7; 51.9±32.5), TMR (0.2±0.1; 0.1±0.1), SG (1.5±0.9; 3.4±1.1), FBUT (3.0±1.9; 0.8±1.0), OSED score in the cornea (2.9±2.4; 10.0±3.3) and conjunctiva (2.1±2.2; 4.8±1.5), and ST1 (9.7±7.0; 2.1±2.3).
Conclusions:
The findings of this present study show that the clinical features are different between CFBE and CFIPZ, and that CFBE may also present the clinical characteristics of aqueous tear deficient dry eye.
Keywords: 486 cornea: tears/tear film/dry eye