Structures of the corneal limbus detected by laser-scanning confocal biomicroscopy as related to the palisades of Vogt detected by slit-lamp microscopy

Abstract

To examine the relations between specific structures detected at the corneal limbus by confocal biomicroscopy with palisades of Vogt detected by slit-lamp microscopy Twenty-five eyes of 25 normal participants were examined. The presence or absence of the palisades of Vogt and limbal pigmentation were assessed by slit-lamp microscopy. The presence or absence of four structures in the corneal limbal area--hyperreflective parallel trabecular extensions, borders of bright-cell groups and dark-cell groups, hyperreflective cells and bright corpuscular particles with dendritic cell-like morphology--were assessed by confocal biomicroscopy. The relations between the presence of these four structures and the presence of either the palisades of Vogt or limbal pigmentation of the palisade ridges were evaluated by the chi-squared test. Only the presence of hyperreflective parallel trabecular extensions was significantly related to the presence of the palisades of Vogt (P < 0.01). The presence of hyperreflective cells was not significantly related to the presence of limbal pigmentation. The hyperreflective parallel trabecular extensions observed by confocal biomicroscopy may correspond to the palisades of Vogt detected by slit-lamp microscopy. Further studies are needed to determine whether confocal biomicroscopy can be used to diagnose and monitor the clinical course of limbal stem cell deficiency.