Abstract
Purpose :
The pathology of multiple subepithelial corneal infiltrates (MSI) following epidemic keratoconjunctivitis (EKC) consists of immune response by dendritic cells, which can be observed by in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM). Formerly, we manually counted number of dendritic cells and convinced that they decreased by topical steroid administration. In this study, we have tried to establish an automated procedure to recognize dendritic cells.
Methods :
Six eyes of 6 cases with MSI following EKC participated in this study at Hiroshima University Hospital. All of them were treated with topical steroid administration. We manually counted number of dendritic cells at the initial visit and 1 month later. At the same time, the area occupied by dendritic cells were automatically detected with new software Quick Grain® ( InoTech, Hiroshima, Japan). We evaluated a correlation between manually counted number of dendritic cells and automatically detected area of occupation by dendritic cells statistically.
Results :
At the initial visit and 1 month later, the automatically measured area was significantly correlated with manually counted number (0.13mm2/mm2 and 486.4/mm2, p=0.03) (0.05 mm2/mm2 and 301.1/mm2, p=0.03). Compared with the initial visit, both number and area of dendritic cells significantly decreased 1month after (p=0.04 and p=0.03).
Conclusions :
Our result suggested that the automatically measured area occupied by dendritic cells could be a new index of MSI following EKC. This method would allow us to measure area of other corneal structures such as normal keratocytes and nerve fibers.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Imaging in the Eye Conference, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 26-27, 2019.