Volume : 6, Issue : 4, April - 2017

TO STUDY AND COMPARE THE CENTRAL CORNEAL THICKNESS AND ENDOTHELIAL CELL PARAMETERS IN PATIENTS WITH OPEN ANGLE GLAUCOMA WITH NORMAL CONTROLS.

Prempal Kaur, Inderjit Kaur, Piyush Goyal, Atish Pradhan

Abstract :

 Introduction: Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world and is responsible for approximately 5.2 million blind which accounts to 15% of the total burden of world blindness. Aims:To study and compare the central corneal thickness (CCT) and endothelial cell count (ECC) in patients with open angle  glaucoma with normal controls. Material and Methods: This prospective, observational study was conducted on 100 patients (200eyes) of glaucoma and compared with 100 normal age and sex matched individuals(200 eyes).Specular microscope was used to access corneal ECC, hexagonality and coefficient of variance(CV). CCT was measured with ultrasonic pachymeter. The data collected was tabulated and analysed . Results: The mean central corneal  was thicker ( 513.64±35.64) µm in Group A than in control Group B( 515.57 ±27.84 µm ) but was not statistically significant (p-value>0.05). The mean corneal ECC was  lower (2175.32± 426.67 cells/mm2 ) in Group A than Group B (2387.86±280.17 cells/mm2) and the mean hexagonality in  Group A was lower (65.03±28.57) than control group (87.94±13.26) and the difference was highly significant (p-value<0.05). The mean CV was significantly higher (47.74±17.78) in Group A than control group  (35.51±15.39) (p-value<0.05). Conclusion: Patients with glaucoma have increased central corneal thickness, higher co-efficient of variation , lower corneal endothelial cell density and hexagonality as compared to normal age and sex matched individuals .