Clinical significance of central corneal thickness and comparison of central corneal thickness measurements methods

Abstract

Significance of central corneal thickness has been increasing in ophthalmology practice. It is an important clinical evaluation tool especially prior to refractive surgery and in diagnosis of glaucoma and keratoconus. Refractive surgery is planned according to preoperative central corneal thickness measurements. Besides, in order to determine actual intraocular pressure, central corneal thickness is measured and corrected eye pressure is obtained. Today, devices used in measurement of central corneal thickness do the measurement according to two principles. First and relatively older method is ultrasonic method. Optic method is the second and more recent method. In daily practice, the most commonly used clinical method in measurement of central corneal thickness is ultrasound pachymeter. However, this measurement technique requires contact between cornea and probe and gives thinner measurement results compared to the methods that use optic principle. Recently, several technologic methods based on optics have been put in use; they provide advantages of non-contact technique and objective determination of central corneal thickness. Of these methods, most commonly used include Specular Microscopy, Optical coherence tomography, Laser Doppler Interferometry, Optical low coherence reflectometry pachymetry, Optic based topographic mapping (also called screening section pachymetry) and Pentacam. In this article, it was aimed to evaluate importance of central corneal thickness in clinical use and compare measurement methods. J Clin Exp Invest 2014; 5 (1): 153-158