Abstract
Purpose:
To report the findings from the Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) in the cornea of patients with Recurrent Corneal Erosion Syndrome (RCES).
Methods:
10 normal subjects and 25 RCES patients were recruited for the study. 10 RCES patients, suffered from an acute episode of pain and 15 patients complained of the typical chronic symptoms of RCES. All eyes were scanned with the Anterior segment 5 line raster acquisition protocol of the Cirrus HD-OCT platform (Zeiss, Germany). The etiology of RCES was investigated and treatment was applied following a standard clinical protocol. Scans were obtained at different stages of the pathology and we performed follow-up of each patient following treatment.
Results:
Tear film, epithelium, basement membrane, Bowman layer, stroma and Descemet’s-endothelium complex were identified by OCT in all normal corneas. Same structures were identified in non-affected areas of RCES corneas. Patients suffering from acute RCES showed the following OCT findings: anterior stromal hyper-refletivity (100%), epithelial edema (100%) and irregular breaks in the epithelium (90%). Patients with chronic RCES presented areas with undetected epithelial basement membrane (100%), intraepithelial basement membrane (60%), intraepithelial inclusions (60%) and anterior stromal hyper-reflectivity (40%). These findings correlated well with the clinical symptoms and with the previously described histological reports of RCES.
Conclusions:
Corneal OCT can be useful to study and manage RCES. Specific OCT findings may clarify etiology, confirm a suspected diagnosis and give advice on the decision to treat patients.