Abstract
Purpose: :
To evaluate and compare central corneal thickness (CCT) values measured with Anterior Segment OCT (AS-OCT), Non-contact Specular Microscope (NCSM), and ultrasound pachymetry.
Methods: :
CCT was measured in 182 healthy eyes of 182 patients without ocular abnormalities other than refractive errors. Three consecutive measurements of CCT by the same examinator were obtained sequentially by AS-OCT, Non-contact Specular Microscope and ultrasound pachymetry.
Results: :
The average CCT measured by AS-OCT, Non-contact Specular Microscope and ultrasound pachymetry were 535.75 ± 1.43 µm, 546.41 ± 10.89 µm and 537.95 ± 3.95 µm. The mean differences between modalities were 10.66 µm (P=0.006) between AS-OCT and Specular Microscope, 2.19 µm (P=0.56) between ultrasound pachymetry and AS-OCT and 8.46 µm (P=0,03) between Specular Microscope and ultrasound pachymetry.
Conclusions: :
CCT plays an important role in diagnostic and therapeutic decision making in many eye diseases. Various instruments are available as possible replacement for ultrasonic pachymeter, which is considered nowadays the gold standard due to its good reproducibility and repeatability. CCT measurements by AS-OCT are comparable to those by ultrasound pachymetry; statistically significant differences were found between Non-contact Specular Microscope measurements and both AS-OCT and ultrasound pachymetry.
Keywords: cornea: clinical science • anterior segment • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: systems/equipment/techniques