Posters

Anterior segment high-resolution optical coherence tomography for diagnostic and monitoring purposes of different conjunctival and corneal lesions

Poster Details

First Author: G.Hawlina SLOVENIA

Co Author(s): G. Hawlina   J. Pižem   A. Lavrič Groznik              

Abstract Details

Purpose:

Traditional diagnostic methods for conjunctival and corneal eye diseases include history, clinical examination, impression cytology and histopathology. In recent years, anterior segment high resolution optical coherent tomography (HR OCT) have been established for diagnostic and monitoring purposes. HR OCT distinguishes different pathological changes based on optical characteristics. The differentiation of several conjunctival and corneal pathologies based on OCT examination is presented.

Setting:

Eye Hospital, University Medical Center Ljubljana, Slovenia

Methods:

Patients with different conjunctival and corneal pathologies were enrolled in prospective case series. Analysis of pingueculum, pterygium, conjunctival/corneal intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), conjunctival cyst, limbal dermoid, naevus, melanoma and lymphoma were made with HR OCT (Spectralis HRA + OCT, Heidelberg Engineering Inc., Germany). In most of the cases surgical excision was performed and histopathologic specimens were correlated with OCT images.

Results:

CIN was characterized by epithelial thickening and hyper-reflectivity with abrupt transition from normal to abnormal epithelium. Pterygium and pingueculum showed dense, hyper-reflective, fibrillary subepithelial lesion under normal epithelium, while in conjunctival cyst hypo-reflective content under thinner epithelium was observed. In limbal dermoid highly reflective nonhomogeneous subepithelial lesion at the limbal region with slightly thickened epithelium was observed. Normal epithelium with homogenous, dark subepithelial lesion was observed in lymphoma case. Naevus presented with normal epithelium, posterior shadowing under pigmented region and presence of cysts. Whereas melanoma presented with thin to normal thickness epithelium with variable hyperreflectivity of the basal layer.

Conclusions:

HR OCT is a useful tool in differentiating among various conjunctival and corneal lesions whereas in most cases they should still be clinically evaluated and histopathologically proven. It is a promising non-invasive adjunctive diagnostic and monitoring tool for ocular conjunctival and corneal lesions.

Financial Disclosure:

None