Abstract
Purpose :
To investigate the influence of pterygium on the corneal higher-order aberrations (HOAs) of the anterior, posterior and total cornea.
Methods :
Twelve eyes of 10 patients with primary pterygium that underwent surgical excision were enrolled. Corneal HOAs (higher order aberration [root mean square of 3rd- to 6th-order Zernike coefficients], coma aberration, and spherical aberration measured using anterior segment optical coherence tomography [AS-OCT; CASIA®, Tomey, Japan]) within 6.0 mm of diameter of the anterior, posterior, and total cornea were evaluated before as well as 1 and 3 months after the pterygium excision procedure.
Results :
The HOAs of the posterior cornea was 0.55 ± 1.15 preoperatively, and it improved to 0.19 ± 0.06 and 0.19 ± 0.06 at 1 and 3 months postoperatively, respectively (p = 0.007 and 0.04, respectively). Coma aberration of the posterior cornea was 0.44 ± 0.93 preoperatively, and it improved to 0.15 ± 0.05 and 0.14 ± 0.05 at 1 and 3 months postoperatively, respectively (p = 0.006 and 0.02, respectively). Spherical aberration was 0.32 ± 0.68 preoperatively, and it did not significantly change at 1 (0.12 ± 0.04; p = 0.09) and 3 months postoperatively (0.17 ± 0.07; p = 0.24). All the higher order, coma, and spherical aberrations were not significantly different between 1 and 3 months postoperatively.
Conclusions :
Although pterygium is a pathological lesion of the corneal epithelium and the superficial stroma, it affects the HOAs of not only the anterior cornea but also the posterior cornea. In all eyes, the increased HOAs of the anterior, posterior, and total cornea decreased at just 1 month after surgical excision of the pterygium.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.