Pircher Niklas, Kilian Raphael, Beer Florian, Donner Ruth, Roberts Philipp, Pircher Michael, Hitzenberger Christoph K, Aschauer Julia, Schmidinger Gerald, Lammer Jan
Department of Ophthalmology and Optometry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Department of Translational Medicine, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2025 Jan 30. doi: 10.1007/s00417-025-06750-8.
To investigate the role of corneal epithelium- and Bowman's layer-thickness (ET and BLT) changes as possible early biomarkers of keratoconus (KC) development.
In this cross-sectional study patients with unilateral KC (UKC) and a group of healthy controls underwent polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) for the evaluation of corneal ET and BLT. These values were compared among three subgroups of eyes, i.e., eyes with KC, topographically and tomographically normal fellow eyes (FE) of patients with UKC, and healthy eyes (HE).
Twelve patients with UKC (12 eyes with KC and 12 FE) and 21 healthy age-matched controls (HE) were included. While KC eyes showed the typical epithelial "doughnut pattern" on epithelial maps, there were no differences in ET between FE and HE. BLT was significantly higher in FE compared to HE (average BLT p = 0.049, minimum BLT p = 0.02, nasal-inferior quadrant p = 0.04) as weIl as KC eyes (average BLT p = 0.048, minBLT p = 0.04, nasal-inferior quadrant p = 0.03).
Increase in BLT seems to occur before epithelial thinning in FE of patients with UKC. Since many of KC patients develop the disease bilaterally, Bowman's layer thickening might represent an early biomarker of KC-development.
研究角膜上皮厚度和Bowman层厚度（ET和BLT）变化作为圆锥角膜（KC）发展潜在早期生物标志物的作用。
在这项横断面研究中，对单侧KC患者（UKC）和一组健康对照者进行偏振敏感光学相干断层扫描（PS-OCT），以评估角膜ET和BLT。在三组眼睛亚组中比较这些值，即患KC的眼睛、UKC患者在地形和断层扫描上正常的对侧眼（FE）以及健康眼睛（HE）。
纳入了12例UKC患者（12只患KC的眼睛和12只FE）以及21名年龄匹配的健康对照者（HE）。虽然患KC的眼睛在上皮层图上显示出典型的上皮“甜甜圈图案”，但FE和HE之间的ET没有差异。与HE相比，FE的BLT显著更高（平均BLT p = 0.049，最小BLT p = 0.02，鼻下象限p = 0.04），与KC眼睛相比也是如此（平均BLT p = 0.048，最小BLT p = 0.04，鼻下象限p = 0.03）。
在UKC患者的FE中，BLT增加似乎发生在上皮变薄之前。由于许多KC患者双侧发病，Bowman层增厚可能代表KC发展的早期生物标志物。
