Corneal optical coherence tomography before and immediately after excimer laer photorefractive keratectomy

PURPOE: To invetigate the repreentation of the corneal tructure with optical coherence tomography before and immediately after excimer laer photorefractive keratectomy. METHOD: Twenty-four eye of 24 patient with myopia and myopic atigmatim were propectively tudied. The corneal thickne and the corneal profile were aeed with lit-lamp–adapted optical coherence tomography preoperatively and immediately after excimer laer photorefractive keratectomy. REULT: The attempted mean pherical equivalent of the refractive correction wa −6.7 ± 3.6 (mean ± D) diopter with a mean calculated tromal ablation depth of 91 ± 38 μm. The corneal optical coherence tomography wa reproducible in all patient, demontrating a mean decreae of central corneal thickne after epithelial debridement and excimer laer photorefractive keratectomy of 118 ± 45 μm. The comparion of the calculated tromal ablation depth and the corneal thickne change determined by corneal optical coherence tomography revealed a ignificant linear relationhip with a correlation coefficient of 0.88 (P < .001). The flattening of the corneal curvature wa confirmed in all patient with the optical coherence tomography ytem and correlated with the attempted refractive correction (r = .82, P < .001). CONCLUION: The lit-lamp–adapted optical coherence tomography ytem preented in thi tudy allowed noncontact, cro-ectional, and high-reolution imaging of the corneal configuration. Thi initial clinical evaluation demontrated that corneal optical coherence tomography could be a promiing diagnotic modality to monitor corneal change of thickne and curvature before and after excimer laer photorefractive keratectomy.