Age related changes in corneal morphological characteristics of healthy Pakistani eyes

Abstract

Purpose: To determine the age related changes in corneal morphological characteristics in normal healthy adult Pakistani population.

Methods: Four hundred and sixty-four eyes of 232 healthy volunteers with ages between 10 and 80 years of either gender were included. Corneal endothelial cell density (CED), morphology and central corneal thickness (CCT) were evaluated in each subject with non-contact specular microscope (SP-3000 P, Topcon Corporation, Japan) and average of three readings per eye was used for final analysis. All the findings including demographic data, and corneal parameters were endorsed on a pre-devised proforma.

Results: Mean age of study population was 39.52 ± 18.09 years with 123 (53%) males and 109 (47%) females. Mean CED of study population was 2722.67 ± 349.67 cells/mm², while mean CCT was 505.72 ± 32.82 µm. Corneal morphological parameters among various age groups showed statistically significant difference in all parameters (p < 0.01). Correlation statistics revealed that CED (r = -0.497, p < 0.01), CCT (r = -0.216, p < 0.01) and hexagonality (r = -0.397, p < 0.01) decreased significantly with increasing age, while average cell size (r = 0.492, p < 0.01) and CV of size (r = 0.454, p < 0.01) increased with age.

Conclusion: This study showed that CED in Pakistani eyes was less than that reported in Chinese eyes, higher than Portuguese, Iranian and Indian eyes and comparable to the values in Turkish, Nigerian and Thai eyes.

Keywords: Central corneal thickness; Corneal endothelium; Endothelial cell density; Specular microscopy.