Abstract
Purpose: :
To compare central corneal thikeness (CCT) of north African people to European people.
Methods: :
Pentacam pachymetry was performed in refractive surgery centers in Algeria, Tunisia and Morroco on 1615 eyes of patients originating from North Africa.
Results: :
Most of the patients (70%) were aged from 20 to 35 years old. Thirty eight percent (38%) had a CCT between 450 and 500 microns, 40% between 500 and 550 microns. Patients with Keratoconus were excluded from this study.Near of 50% of patients who were planned for refractive surgery did not meet the principal criteria. It seems that people originating from North Africa have this particularity. There is no relationship with the degree of myopia.
Conclusions: :
Publications on this subject being very poor, a study on a larger number of patients has to be conducted in order to confirm the relationship between CCT and ethnic origin.
Keywords: cornea: clinical science • refractive surgery: corneal topography • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence