Purpose: To report the clinical course and compare the utility of Scheimpflug tomography (ST) and anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) for central corneal thickness (CCT) and corneal densitometry (CD) assessment in patients with corneal crystals owing to nephropathic cystinosis.
Methods: A retrospective chart analysis of three patients with nephropathic cystinosis and the presence of corneal cystine crystals in both eyes was performed. All patients underwent clinical examination and anterior segment photography, ST, and AS-OCT scans. Corneal densitometry was exported from built-in proprietary software for ST and from custom-made validated software for AS-OCT. Anterior segment optical coherence tomography images were rescaled to grayscale units from 0 (maximum transparency) to 100 (minimum transparency) to match built-in ST densitometry readings. Furthermore, the mean pixel intensity, representative of CD, was calculated from the pixels corresponding to the segmented cornea.
Results: All three patients had pathognomonic cystine crystals deposits in the cornea and were treated with cysteamine medications that resulted in clinical improvement. The CCT measured using ST exhibited a range from 560 to 958 μm. Conversely, when assessed with AS-OCT, the CCT varied within the range of 548 to 610 μm. Both examinations could be performed, but in the more severe cases, AS-OCT showed far greater utility to estimate CD. In four of six eyes examined, ST showed disproportionate CCT values, compared with the AS-OCT, whereas reliable CD measurements were only available in AS-OCT.
Conclusion: The AS-OCT could be considered a baseline ocular measurement in cystinosis and in the evaluation of disease progression and treatment efficacy.
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