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Large German study bolsters correlation between thin corneas and glaucoma damage
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BERLIN — A large multicenter survey of German glaucoma patients shows thin central corneas as measured by optical coherence pachymetry may correlate with advanced stages of the disease, according to a poster presented here.
The German MoviX survey of 121,634 eyes of 62,060 patients found that patients with thinner corneas as measured by optical coherence pachymetry by Heidelberg Engineering tended to have greater visual field loss, according to the study presented at the World Ophthalmology Congress.
"This large number of patients shows visual field damage increases the smaller the thickness is," Richard Stodtmeister, MD, co-author of the study, said in an interview with Ocular Surgery News.
Visual field loss was found to be higher in patients with thinner corneas, according to the poster. Eyes without visual field loss were found to have a median thickness of 547 µm, compared with 523 µm in eyes with Aulhorn stage 3 or greater visual field loss.
"The correlation between thin corneas and visual field damage has never been shown before on such a large scale," Dr. Stodtmeister said.
Dr. Stodtmeister said optical coherence pachymetry was a highly reliable method of measuring central corneal thickness.
The study was supported by Pfizer Pharma GmbH.
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