Abstract
Purpose:
To investigate in vivo corneal changes of radial keratoneuritis in early stage Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) using the anterior segment optical coherence tomograph (AS-OCT).
Methods:
Four eyes (4 patients, mean age, 28.5 years) with early stage AK showing radial keratoneuritis were included in this study. Definitive diagnosis was made by confirmation of AK cysts using in vivo confocal microscopy and culture. AS-OCT examination was performed on the initial visit and at follow-up visits paying special attention to radial keratoneuritis. Selected AS-OCT images of the cornea were evaluated qualitatively for the shape and degree of light reflection of abnormal neurons.
Results:
Using AS-OCT, we successfully obtained high-resolution images of putative radial keratoneuritis in all patients as highly reflective bands or lines in the corneal stroma. The depth and width of the highly reflective bands/lines varied from case to case (anterior stroma to mid-stroma, from 20 to 200 μm). Some lines ran obliquely from the deep peripheral stroma toward the anterior stroma, while some were located at different depths (subepithelial and mid-stroma) and ran relatively parallel to the corneal layers. After appropriate treatment, radial keratoneuritis was resolved by both slit lamp biomicroscopy and AS-OCT in all patients.
Conclusions:
High resolution Fourier domain AS-OCT provides novel and detailed visual information of radial keratoneuritis in patients with early stage AK. Visualization of radial keratoneuritis by AS-OCT may be a useful adjunct to the diagnosis and follow-up of early stage AK.
Keywords: 402 Acanthamoeba •
479 cornea: clinical science •
550 imaging/image analysis: clinical