Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 26, 2025
Author Spotlight: Anterior HR-OCT as a Non-Invasive Tool for Characterizing Ocular Surface Squamous Neoplasia
Published on: August 9, 2024
Corneal ectasia detection by epithelial pattern standard deviation from OCT
Marcella Q Salomão1, Ana Luisa Hofling-Lima, Louise Pellegrino Gomes Esporcatte
1From the Instituto de Olhos Renato Ambrósio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Salomão, Gomes Esporcatte, Meneses, Lopes, Sena Jr, Ambrósio Jr); Rio de Janeiro Corneal Tomography and Biomechanics Study Group, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Salomão, Gomes Esporcatte, Meneses, Lopes, Sena Jr, Machado, Ambrósio Jr); BrAIN: Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Networking in Medicine, Rio de Janeiro & Maceió, Brazil (Salomão, Machado, Ambrósio Jr); Department of Ophthalmology, Escola Paulista de Medicina-Universidade Federal de São Paulo-São Paulo, Brazil (Salomão, Hofling-Lima, Gomes Esporcatte, Lopes, Machado, Ambrósio Jr); Instituto Benjamin Constant, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Salomão); Hospital de Braga, Braga, Portugal (Correa); School of Medicine, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal (Correa); Casey Eye Institute, and Department of Ophthalmology, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon (Li, Huang); the Brass Eye Center (Brass), Latham, New York (Li, Huang); the Gordon Weiss Schanzlin Vision Institute (Weiss), San Diego, California (Li, Huang); School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom (Lopes); Computing Institute, Federal University of Alagoas. Maceió, Brazil (Machado); Department of Ophthalmology, Federal University the state of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) (Sena Jr, Ambrósio Jr).
Purpose:
To test the ability of the corneal epithelial pattern standard deviation (PSD) to distinguish between normal and cases with corneal ectatic condition.
Setting:
Instituto de Olhos Renato Ambrósio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Design:
Cross-sectional retrospective study.
Methods:
Patients were stratified into 4 groups based on clinical data and corneal tomography. Groups 1 and 2 comprised 1 eye randomly selected from 105 patients with normal corneas (N) and 86 patients with bilateral keratoconus (KC). Groups 3 and 4, respectively, comprised 11 ectatic eyes with no surgical treatment for KC (very asymmetric ectasia [VAE]-E) from patients whose fellow eyes (61) presented with normal topographic patterns (VAE-NT). Corneas were scanned using an OCT system (RT Vue) and Scheimpflug corneal tomography (Pentacam) and also had biomechanical assessment through the Corvis ST. Corneal epithelial thickness maps were analyzed, and the PSD value was calculated. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the indices.
Results:
A total of 105 normal eyes, 86 keratoconic eyes, and 11 ectatic eyes whose fellow eyes (61) presented normal topographic patterns were evaluated. Epithelial PSD was significantly different across the 4 groups ( P < .0001). The pairwise comparison revealed that the normal group presented significantly lower values than both ectasia groups (KC and VAE-E, P < .0001) and the VAE-NT group ( P = .0008). There was no statistical significant difference between KC and VAE-E ( P = .4284), while they were significantly higher than the VAE-NT group ( P < .0001 and P = .0004).
Conclusions:
Epithelial PSD can be used to detect abnormal epithelial thickness patterns. Corneal epithelial thickness changes could be detected accurately in patients with KC, even in the form fruste of the disease.
More Related Videos
07:51Full-Field Optical Coherence Microscopy for Histology-Like Analysis of Stromal Features in Corneal Grafts
Published on: October 21, 2022
12:36A Human Corneal Organ Culture Model of Descemet's Stripping Only with Accelerated Healing Stimulated by Engineered Fibroblast Growth Factor 1
Published on: July 22, 2022