title: Measurement of central corneal thickness and pre-corneal tear film thickness of rabbits using the Scheimpflug system.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To measure central corneal thickness (CCT) and pre-corneal tear film thickness using the Galilei dual-Scheimpflug analyzer (GSA) in New Zealand white rabbits.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten normal New Zealand white rabbits (20 eyes) were included in this study. With the assistance of 0.1% fluorescein, the pre-corneal tear film can be well visualized. Both eyes of each rabbit were scanned once with the GSA pre- and post-instillation of 1µL 0.1% fluorescein. The difference between the two measurements of CCT (4-mm diameter) was recorded as the pachymetric values of the central tear film.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The CCT of pre- and post-instillation was 388.8±9.5µm and 407.0±10.5µm, respectively. After a paired t-test analysis, the central pre-corneal tear film thickness of 4mm diameter was 18.2±5.31µm with a 95% confidence interval of (15.7, 20.6)µm (P<0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  GSA can be used to measure CCT and analyze central tear film thickness of rabbits with the help of fluorescein.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Xiao-Gang
authors.initials: XG
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Scheimpflug; central corneal thickness; fluorescein; rabbits; tear film