Posters

Oxidative stress marker dynamics in keratoconus patients before and after corneal cross-linking

Poster Details

First Author: A.Cantemir ROMANIA

Co Author(s):    A. Alexa   R. Ciuntu   N. Anton   C. Danielescu   B. Galan   D. Chiselita     

Abstract Details

Purpose:

While recent studies provide consistent evidence on systemic oxidative stress in KC patients, little or no knowledge is available on the tear fluid oxidative stress markers, such as antioxidant enzymes activity or lipid peroxidation markers. Also, little is known considering the oxidative stress markers dynamics following CXL. The aim of the study was to assess several parameters of the oxidative stress in KC patients’ tear film before and after standard corneal crosslinking (CXL).

Setting:

Oftaprof Clinic, Iasi, Romania

Methods:

The subject of this prospective observational study consisted in 40 participants equally distributed in two experimental groups: patients with keratoconus (KC group, n=20) who received the recommendation CXL procedure and healthy age and sex-matched controls (C group, n=20).Superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) enzymatic activity, and malondialdehyde (MDA) concentrations were measured in tear samples of 20 keratoconus patients at baseline, one month and three months after CXL.

Results:

Biochemical analysis of the subjects’ tears revealed significant differences regarding all the evaluated parameters.SOD activity in the KC group was significantly lower as compared with C group (p = 0.0014). GPX activity was significantly greater (p = 0.0001) and MDA levels significantly higher in KC group when pair-comparing with controls (p = 0.0003).A significant decrease in SOD activity was observed at both 1 and 3 months following CXL, while the GPx activity significantly increased at 1 month and 3 months after CXL (p< 0.001 for all comparisons).At 3 months following CXL a significant decrease was observed in MDA levels (p=0.003).

Conclusions:

This study provides consistent evidence of increased oxidative stress followed by lipid peroxidation in keratoconus patients.Significantly higher GPx enzyme activity indicating a compensatory response to intense lipid peroxidation was noticed in KC patients. Following CXL, SOD activity significantly decreases and GPx activity increases even more, as compared with baseline KC levels.

Financial Disclosure:

None