Abstract
Purpose. To study the geographical distribution of corneal temperature (CT) and its influence on the intraocular pressure (IOP) of healthy human volunteers. Materials and Methods. Fifteen subjects (7 M, 8 F), 33.8 ± 17.4 years old, were enrolled in this pilot, cross-sectional study. Measurements of CT were taken after one hour with closed eyelids (CET) or closed eyelids with a cooling mask (cm-CET) and compared to baseline. Results. If compared to baseline, after CET, average CT significantly increased by 0.56°C in the RE and by 0.48°C in the LE (p < 0.001) and IOP concomitantly significantly increased by 1.13 mmHg and 1.46 mmHg, respectively, in each eye (p < 0.001). After cm-CET, average CT significantly decreased by 0.11°C and 0.20°C, respectively, in the RE and LE (RE p = 0.04; LE p = 0.024), followed by a significant IOP decrease of 2.19 mmHg and 1.54 mmHg, respectively, in each eye (RE p < 0.001; LE p = 0.0019). Conclusion. Significant variations of CT occurred after CET and cm-CET and were directly correlated with significant differences of IOP. It can be speculated that both oxidative stress and sympathetic nerve fiber stimulation by temperature oscillations may affect the regulation of AH vortex flow and turnover, thus influencing IOP values.
Highlights
Temperature is one of the fundamental regulators of tissue metabolism [1, 2]
The lowest temperature was observed at the temporal side, the highest temperature was observed at the nasal side, and intermediate values were observed along the corneal longitudinal axis
After closed eyelid test (CET), all the temperatures tended to increase with respect to the basal values whereas after cm-CET all the temperatures showed a tendency to decrease
Summary
Temperature is one of the fundamental regulators of tissue metabolism [1, 2]. Interest in the temperature of the eye spans almost 130 years and the ability to measure the temperature of the eye, driven by prevailing technologies, has potential importance in both research and clinical situations, including the study of ocular physiology and pathology [3,4,5,6,7,8,9].New infrared ocular thermographs allow a noncontact and nonintrusive characterization of the thermal profile across the ocular surface [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. Some studies showed a correlation between ocular surface temperature and ocular blood flow. An increase of intraocular pressure (IOP) was found to be related to a contemporary decrease of ocular perfusion pressure and ocular temperature in monkeys [25]. A recent study on humans has reported that eyes with ischemic central venous retinal occlusion (CRVO) have lower ocular surface temperatures than nonischemic ones [26]. In carotid artery stenosis, the eye on the affected side has been found to have an impairment in retrobulbar hemodynamics along with a reduction in corneal temperature (CT) [26]. Thermography has been applied to explore the role of vascular factors in the physiopathology of glaucoma and Galassi et al have recently defined ocular surface temperature as a marker of impaired retrobulbar hemodynamics in patients with glaucoma [27]
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