Wavefront patterns may help identify subclinical keratoconus

MONTE CARLO, Monaco — Specific alterations in the patterns of some higher-order aberrations may help clinicians detect subclinical keratoconus in patients desiring refractive surgery, a speaker here suggested. Certain patterns of vertical coma and vertical prism seem to be predictive of subclinical keratoconus, according to Thomas Kohnen, MD.

“We analyzed the wavefront data of the contralateral clinically healthy eyes of recently diagnosed monolateral keratoconus patients and compared these data with control normal eyes,” Dr. Kohnen said, speaking here at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons Winter Refractive Surgery meeting. “All the eyes of the first group showed significant differences in the pattern of corneal first surface aberrations.”

These results are preliminary, Dr. Kohnen stressed, and more data should be collected to assess the feasibility of wavefront analysis to discriminate eyes with subclinical keratoconus from normal eyes. Should these results be confirmed, this method could be useful to detect subclinical keratoconus when selecting candidates for refractive surgery, he said.