Comparison of corneal thickness measurement with the pachymeter included in the Wavelight® EX500 Excimer Laser and the Scheimpflug camera tomograph Pentacam® in healthy subjects

Abstract

Objective Comparing the central corneal thickness measurements obtained by the pachymeter included in the Wavelight EX 500 Excimer Laser® and the Pentacam Scheimpflug® based tomography. Material and methods In a sample of thirty unoperated eyes of healthy subjects, the central corneal thickness was analyzed by a single examiner, prior to the measurements eyes was randomized. Three sets of measurements from each device were evaluated and statistical analysis was based on the averages of the measurements. For the correlation between both devices, T-test with Bonferrioni adjustment and Bland and Altman plots were used to assess agreement between devices. Results 30 healthy subjects were evaluated with a mean age of 28.7 ± 8.06 years (range 19-49 years), of which 12 were men. The right eye was randomized in 40% of patients. The average corneal thickness was 553.31 ± 32.47 μm and 554.53 ± 30.83 μm for WaveLight and Pentacam respectively, the difference was not statistically significant (P = .369). The difference in the average CCT was -1.2 microns (WaveLight-Pentacam) with a confidence interval of 95% from –3.96 to 1.51 microns. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that the pachymeter included in the Wavelight® EX500 Excimer Laser is a good alternative to the Pentacam pachymetry in the measurement measure of central corneal thickness in healthy patients.