Abstract
Purpose: :
To investigate corneal endothelial cell change after phacoemulsification with clear cornea incision.
Methods: :
In a retrospective study, the central corneal endothelial cell morphology of 43 eyes of 43 patients that underwent cataract extraction by phacoemulsification with clear cornea incision was evaluated preoperatively (PREOP) and central and near the incisions peripheral areas were evaluated postoperatively (POSOP) with contact specular microscopy BioOptics. Cell area (CA), polymegethism by coefficient of variation (CV) and pleomorphism by percentage of hexagonal cells (%H) were calculated by Bambi Plus 2000 software. Inclusion criteria were endothelial tests on samples that demonstrated confidence degree of 95% and relative error < 0,05 according the Cells Analyzer software. Sample: males 14 (35%) and 29 females (65%). Mean age 72 ± 7 years. Time between phacoemulsification and examination POSOP: 3.8 ± 3 months. The test of variance with significance level 95% was used to compare continuous variables described by mean and standard deviation of endothelial images.
Results: :
There was a significant increase in CA when comparing Central PREOP and POPOP areas, rated at 15 % (11.74 F calc > F tab 2.11). When comparing Central PREOP and Peripheral POSOP, there was also a significant increase of CA (93%) (F calc 91,56 > F tab 2,11), CV (F calc 6,61 > F tab 2,11) and % H (F calc 0.00 F tab 2.11) and% H (F calc 0.00 <F tab 2.11), when comparing central and peripheral areas. The CV did not suffer significant variation between the central and peripheral areas postoperatively.
Conclusions: :
The endothelial cells have undergone significant changes in CA, CV and %H, after surgery. They were more significant near the incision than they were in the central area.
Keywords: cornea: endothelium • imaging/image analysis: clinical • shape and contour