Abstract
Purpose: :
On cross-sectional analysis, corneal hysteresis (CH) is lower with advancing age and in glaucomatous compared to healthy eyes. The aim of this study was to compare the rate of decline of CH in normal patients and patients with primary open angle glaucoma (POAG).
Methods: :
Consecutive normal and POAG patients underwent assessment with the Ocular Response Analyzer (ORA; Reichert Corp., Buffalo, USA) on each office visit. Right eyes with at least 7 measurements were included for analysis. All patients with known ocular pathology other than POAG were excluded. Two sample t-tests (adjusted for unequal variance as indicated), chi-squared, and logistic regression were used to analyze data.
Results: :
A total of 1418 normal and 322 POAG patients were included. POAG patients were significantly older (70.73 ± 11.33 vs. 61.59 ± 16.56 years; P<0.001), had a longer duration of follow-up (4.14 ± 1.34 vs. 2.72 ± 1.49 years; P<0.001), and lower CH (9.58 ± 2.17 vs. 9.95 ± 2.19 mmHg; P=0.01), but there were no gender differences between groups (61.5 vs. 57.7% female; p=0.21). We also observed a significantly more negative change over time in CH among POAG compared to normal patients (-0.11 ± 0.73 vs. 0.07 ± 2.31 mm Hg/year; P=0.02). The relation between ΔCH/year and diagnosis persisted after adjusting for age and follow-up time (OR 0.90; 95% CI 0.82, 0.99; p=0.03).
Conclusions: :
POAG patients in this study had a significantly greater rate of CH decline compared to normal.
Keywords: cornea: clinical science • aging