Abstract
Purpose :
To evaluate the prevalence and clinical characteristics of neurotrophic keratopathy (NK) in northeastern Mexico.
Methods :
Cross-sectional study in which NK patients admitted to our ophthalmology clinic between 2015-2021 were consecutively enrolled. Data regarding demographics, clinical characteristics, and comorbidities were collected at the time diagnosis of NK was made. General descriptive analyzes were performed using measures of central tendency and comparative analysis using Student's T test for quantitative data and Fisher's test or chi-square distribution for qualitative data. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results :
Results: In the period from 2015 to 2021, a total of 74,056 patients were treated and of these 42 had a diagnosis of neurotrophic keratitis. The prevalence found was 5.67 [CI95 3.95 ~ 7.38] in 10,000 cases. The mean age observed was 59 ± 17.21 years (Table 1), occurring more frequently in males in 59% and with corneal epithelial defects in 66.7% (Table 1). The most frequent antecedents were the use of topical medications in 90% (Table 1), the presence of diabetes mellitus 2 in 40.5% (Table 1) and systemic arterial hypertension in 26.2% (Table 1). The associated clinical characteristics that were observed more frequently were visual acuity deficiency in 81% (Table 1) followed by foreign body sensation in 50% (Table 1). A greater association of developing corneal ulceration was found in females while males only presented corneal epithelial alterations (Table 2). Furthermore, no association was observed with the use of contact lenses (Table 2). Among the clinical characteristics, the absence of ocular pain, redness and constant tearing were associated with the progress of the disease (Table 2).
Conclusions :
Neurotrophic keratitis is an underdiagnosed disease with a broad clinical spectrum. The antecedents that were contracted corroborate what was reported in the literature as risk factors. The prevalence of the disease in this geographical area was not reported, so it is expected to increase over time when searching for it intentionally.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.