Evaluation of a new method for the measurement of corneal thickness in eye bank posterior corneal lenticules using Anterior Segment Optical Coherence Tomography.
OBJECTIVE
To preliminarily evaluate the repeatability of central corneal thickness (CCT) measurements performed with Anterior Segment Optical Coherence Tomography (AS-OCT) on eye bank posterior corneal lenticules.


METHODS
Six donor lenticules were created with a 350 μm head microkeratome (Moria, Antony, France). All donor tissues were stored at 4°C in Eusol-C solution (Alchimia S.r.l, Ponte S. Nicolò, Italy), without the anterior cornea lamella. The CCT of each lenticule, maintained in the glass phial, was measured using a commercial AS-OCT instrument (Visante, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, California, USA) and a specially designed adaptor immediately and 4, 24 and 48 hours after dissection. Immediately after AS-OCT, CCT values were measured with the ultrasound pachymetry method used at the Eye Bank.


RESULTS
The mean donor cornea central thickness was 647±36 μm and 660 ± 38 μm (p=0.001) as measured by AS-OCT and ultrasound, respectively; immediately after dissection, CCT values of posterior lenticules were 235 ± 43 μm and 248 ± 44 μm, respectively (p=0.001). No statistically significant changes in CCT values of donor lenticules were assessed over the 48 h period with both methods. There was a high level of agreement, evidenced by Bland-Altman analysis, between the two methods of pachymetry.


CONCLUSIONS
AS-OCT, with the corneal tissue in the vial, was revealed to be a repeatable and reliable method for measuring posterior donor lenticule central thickness. Lenticule CCT values measured with the investigational AS-OCT method were on average 10 μm thinner than those measured with the established ultrasound method.
Eye Bank of Rome, IRCCS Fondazione G. B. Biett, Via Merulana, Rome, Italy. damato@hsangiovanni.roma.it
Domenico
D
Amato
Marco
M
Lombardo
Francesco
F
Oddone
Mario
M
Nubile
Rossella A M
RA
Colabelli Gisoldi
Carlo M
CM
Villani
Sonia
S
Yoo
Jean-Marie
JM
Parel
Augusto
A
Pocobelli
D000869:Anterior Eye Segment / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D003315:Cornea / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005125:Eye Banks; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*