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Subject Area

Dermatology

Article Type

Original Study

Abstract

Objectives To determine corneal topographic characteristics of children with vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC) and compare the corneal topographic indices between patients with VKC and normal participants. Background Keratoconus is the most common corneal ectatic disorder, the cause of which is largely unknown. Many factors have been implicated, and ocular allergy is one of them. Patients and methods A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted on children with VKC who attended outpatient clinic of Menoufia University Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, in the period from February 2018 to February 2019. All study patients were divided in two groups: group I included 50 eyes of children with VKC aged between 7 and 18 years and group II included 30 eyes of normal age-matched and sex-matched participants. Full history, routine and physical examination, general topography, and Pentacam imaging were done. Results Children with VKC had significantly increased keratoconus index, index of surface variance, and index of vertical asymmetry than normal group. However, children with VKC had significantly decreased thinnest location (529.43 ± 34.72) than normal groups (569.30 ± 16.43) (P < 0.001). In addition, there were non statistical significant differences between the studied children regarding anterior chamber depth (P = 0.913) and corneal volume (P = 0.286). Moreover, max elevation front was significantly increased among children with VKC (9.03 ± 5.59) than normal groups (3.57 ± 1.28) (P < 0.001). Conclusions There was a higher prevalence of keratoconus-like topography in patients with VKC. However, owing to small sample size, being hospital-based study, lack of population-based randomized study, and lack of correlation between clinical findings and topographic findings, the data have limited role in extrapolation to the general population. So, patients with VKC should be advised to have corneal topography, especially when presentation of VKC is of long duration, a significant proportion of high refractive error is present, and Best Spectacle-Corrected Visual Acuity (BSCVA) is decreased.

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