Diagnostic performance of corneal epithelium- and Bowman's layer thickness mapping in patients with unilateral Keratoconus.

IF 2.4 3区医学 Q2 OPHTHALMOLOGY Graefe’s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology Pub Date : 2025-05-01 Epub Date: 2025-01-30 DOI:10.1007/s00417-025-06750-8

Niklas Pircher, Raphael Kilian, Florian Beer, Ruth Donner, Philipp Roberts, Michael Pircher, Christoph K Hitzenberger, Julia Aschauer, Gerald Schmidinger, Jan Lammer

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Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the role of corneal epithelium- and Bowman's layer-thickness (ET and BLT) changes as possible early biomarkers of keratoconus (KC) development.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study patients with unilateral KC (UKC) and a group of healthy controls underwent polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) for the evaluation of corneal ET and BLT. These values were compared among three subgroups of eyes, i.e., eyes with KC, topographically and tomographically normal fellow eyes (FE) of patients with UKC, and healthy eyes (HE).

Results: Twelve patients with UKC (12 eyes with KC and 12 FE) and 21 healthy age-matched controls (HE) were included. While KC eyes showed the typical epithelial "doughnut pattern" on epithelial maps, there were no differences in ET between FE and HE. BLT was significantly higher in FE compared to HE (average BLT p = 0.049, minimum BLT p = 0.02, nasal-inferior quadrant p = 0.04) as weIl as KC eyes (average BLT p = 0.048, minBLT p = 0.04, nasal-inferior quadrant p = 0.03).

Conclusions: Increase in BLT seems to occur before epithelial thinning in FE of patients with UKC. Since many of KC patients develop the disease bilaterally, Bowman's layer thickening might represent an early biomarker of KC-development.

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单侧圆锥角膜患者角膜上皮及鲍曼层厚度测定的诊断价值。

目的：探讨角膜上皮和鲍曼层厚度（ET和BLT）变化作为圆锥角膜（KC）发展的早期生物标志物的作用。方法：在本横断研究中，单侧KC （UKC）患者和一组健康对照者采用偏振敏感光学相干断层扫描（PS-OCT）评估角膜ET和BLT。这些数值在三个眼亚组之间进行比较，即KC眼、UKC患者的地形和断层扫描正常眼（FE）和健康眼（HE）。结果：纳入12例UKC患者（12眼KC和12眼FE）和21例健康同龄对照（HE）。虽然KC眼在上皮图上显示典型的上皮“甜甜圈模式”，但FE和HE之间的ET没有差异。相比于HE（平均BLT p = 0.049，最小BLT p = 0.02，鼻-下象限p = 0.04）和KC眼（平均BLT p = 0.048，最小BLT p = 0.04，鼻-下象限p = 0.03）， FE的BLT显著高于HE。结论：在UKC患者FE中，BLT的增加似乎发生在上皮变薄之前。由于许多KC患者是双侧发病，鲍曼氏层增厚可能是KC发展的早期生物标志物。

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来源期刊

Graefe’s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology 医学-眼科学

CiteScore

5.40

自引率

7.40%

发文量

398

审稿时长

3 months

期刊介绍： Graefe''s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology is a distinguished international journal that presents original clinical reports and clini-cally relevant experimental studies. Founded in 1854 by Albrecht von Graefe to serve as a source of useful clinical information and a stimulus for discussion, the journal has published articles by leading ophthalmologists and vision research scientists for more than a century. With peer review by an international Editorial Board and prompt English-language publication, Graefe''s Archive provides rapid dissemination of clinical and clinically related experimental information.