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. 2020 May;23(3):489-496.
doi: 10.1111/vop.12744. Epub 2020 Feb 3.

Ocular findings in a group of healthy captive leopard geckos

Pilar Camacho-Luna  1 , Christopher Alling  1 , Kimberly Boykin  1 , Chin-Chi Liu  1 , Renee T Carter  1 , Andrew C Lewin  1
Affiliations

Ocular findings in a group of healthy captive leopard geckos

Pilar Camacho-Luna et al. Vet Ophthalmol. 2020 May.

Abstract

Objective: Leopard Geckos (Eublepharis macularius) are popular pets and can be affected by a range of ocular disorders. Our objective was to report ocular findings in a group of healthy captive leopard geckos and to establish reference ranges for commonly performed ocular diagnostic tests.

Animals studied: Twenty-six healthy male geckos aged 1 year old (n = 4) and >2 years old (n = 22).

Procedures: All animals underwent ophthalmic examination, corneal esthesiometry, modified Schirmer tear test (mSTT), rebound tonometry, conjunctival bacterial aerobic and fungal culture, and measurement of ocular dimensions. Student's t test was used to compare values of corneal esthesiometry, tonometry and mSTT between groups. Multiple correlations were assessed by Pearson correlation coefficient.

Results: All animals had a normal ocular examination. Tear production as measured with a mSTT (mean ± SD) technique was 3.1 ± 1.3 mm/min and tonometry values (mean ± SD) were 8.2 ± 1.7 mm Hg. Corneal touch threshold (median, range) was 4.4 cm, 2.5-5.0. Younger animals had a significantly increased corneal sensitivity compared to older animals (P = .0383). Results of culture showed no growth for fungal organism in any animals. Conjunctival bacterial isolation rates were low, with only 7/26 samples positive for nine bacterial species.

Conclusions: Leopard geckos are amenable to ophthalmic examination and ocular diagnostic database testing with minimal manual restraint.

Keywords: Schirmer tear test; corneal esthesiometry; leopard gecko; ocular tonometry.

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References

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