In vivo confocal microscopic evaluation of corneas in patients with exfoliation syndrome undergoing cataract surgery

Session Details

Session Title: Presented Poster Session: Cornea - Surgical

Session Date/Time: Saturday 05/09/2015 | 15:00-16:30

Paper Time: 15:10

Venue: Poster Village: Pod 4

First Author: : M.Irkec TURKEY

Co Author(s): :    S. Kocabeyoglu   M. Mocan           

Abstract Details

Purpose:

To evaluate the corneal microstructure of patients diagnosed with senile cataract and co-existing exfoliation syndrome (XFS) and to compare their findings with XFS patients without clinically significant cataracts.

Setting:

Hacettepe University, School of Medicine Department of Ophthalmology, Ankara, Turkey

Methods:

Twenty-five eyes of patients with XFS and cataract and 25 corneas of patients with XFS without cataract were included in this study. Basal epithelial cell, keratocytes and endothelial cell densities as well as sub-basal nerves were evaluated using in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) (Confoscan 3.0, Vigonza, Italy). T-test and chi-square test were used for the statistical analysis. A p value of 0.05 was accepted as statistically significant.

Results:

There were no significant differences across the two groups with respect to age (69.7±4.4 y vs. 68.8±6.1 y, p=0.137) and gender (11M/14F vs. 14M/11F, p=0.432). The differences in the densities of the basal epithelium (4431.0±735.5; 4370.9±698.8 cell/mm²), keratocytes of anterior, mid, posterior stroma and endothelium were not significant between the groups (p=0.552; p=0.904; 0.810; 0.970; 0.970). There were no significant differences across the two groups with respect to the number of subbasal long nerve fibers (p=0.213), total nerve number (p=0.814), total nerve density of all main nerves and their branches (p=0.873) and nerve fiber tortuosity (p=459).

Conclusions:

The presence of clinically significant cataract is not associated with worse corneal microstructural characteristics in patients with exfoliation syndrome.

Financial Interest:

NONE