Observation of the cornea of ultra-high myopic eyes with confocal microscope

Abstract

Objective To investigate the ultrastructural changes in the super-high myopia cornea.Methods It is a perspective case-control study.Fifty-five ultra-high myopia eyes with diopter range from-10.00 D to-17.00 D,average-13.27±3.24 D and 65 low and moderate myopia eyes with diopter range from-1.00 D to-6.00 D,average-3.12±2.32 D were included in this study.All the patient were axamined with confocal microscope including the cornea epithelium,Bowman' layer,anterior stroma,posterior stroma,endothelium and the patchmetry the results were analyzed by using independent sample t-test methods.Results In ultra-high myopia group 6 eyes (11％) can been observed the deposits at basal cells layer and posterior stroma,and 5 eyes (9.％) can been observed abnormal nerve fiber at posterior stroma.The cell count in anterior stroma,posterior stroma and endothelium is less than that of low and moderate myopia,and the differences were statistically significant (t=6.41,5.25,2.39,P＜0.05).Pleomagthism of endothelium increased and polymagthism decreased and the corneal patchmetry of ultrahigh myopia is more thinner,the difference is statistically significant (t=2.67,3.90,4.62,P＜0.05).The subepithelial plexus nerve fibers difference is not statistically significant (t=0.88,P＞0.05).Conclusion Ultra-high myopia cornea have some difference in ultrastructure compared with low and moderate myopia.whether that corneal function would be involved is not clear. Key words: Cornea; Myopia,degenerative; Microscopy,confocal