Abstract
Purpose :
To examine the innervation of central corneal subbasal nerve plexus in patients with fibromyalgia and compare to normal values of healthy patients.
Methods :
A prospective, observational study was conducted analyzing 15 right eyes of 15 patients with fibromyalgia (12 women and 3 males) aged 49.83 ± 12,55 years (range 34 to 70 years). Nineteen eyes of 19 healthy patients (12 women and 7 males) aged 40.26 ± 10.86 years (range 23 to 54 years) was selected as control group. Subjects underwent microscopy confocal in vivo (IVMC) with the Rodstock cornea Module attached to Heildelberg's HRT3. At least 3 images of each eye were selected and the following subbasal central nervous plexus parameters were measured with ACC Metrics software: corneal nerve fiber density (CNFD), corneal nerve branch density (CNBD), corneal nerve fiber length (CNFL), corneal nerve fiber total branch density (CTBD), corneal nerve fiber area (CNFA), corneal nerve fiber width (CNFW), corneal nerve fractal dimension (CNFrD). Data analysis was performed with SPSS® software for Windows 22.0 (SPSS ® Inc, Chicago, IL.). The normality of the sample was checked with the Saphiro Wilk test and the results were compared to the T test or the Man-Whitney U test based on the distribution of the data. The differences were considered statistically significant for P<0.05
Results :
The mean and standard deviation were CNFD: (13.407 ± 2.027 fibers/mm2) vs (23.353 ± 1.778 fibers/mm2) (p<0.05); CNFL: (10.108 ± 1.016 mm/mm2) vs (13.850 ± 0.768 mm/mm2) (p<0.05); CNFrD: (1.440 ± 0.174) vs (1.475 ± 0.007) (p<0.05). These values were significantly reduced in patients with fibromyalgia compared to control group.
Conclusions :
Patients with fibromyalgia show a significant decrease CNFD and CNFL. CNFrD may be a diagnostically able parameter in fibromyalgia patients as has already been observed in peripheral neuropathies.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.