Automated morphometry of corneal endothelial cell: use of video camera and video tape recorder.

We developed an apparatus for automated morphometry of the corneal endothelium, which was photographed through a specular microscope connected to a video camera, and the images were stored on a video tape. The clearest stationary image was input into an image analyser to determine automatically the cell boundaries. Although human interaction is generally necessary, the mean time required to complete this procedure was about 13 minutes, based on the results of the 30 normal eyes, and the time needed for manual correction was about 4 minutes. The mean cell area obtained by this method correlated well (r = 0.9335) with that obtained by tracing the same images. This apparatus is clinically useful for immediately obtaining the mean cell area of corneal endothelium and will extend the application of specular microscopy to the routine clinical setting.