Objective: To investigate the value of confocal microscopy in determining the morphology of the tarsal gland after cataract phacoemulsification.
Methods: A total of 74 patients (74 eyes) who underwent phacoemulsification for a monocular cataract and intraocular lens implantation (all were single eye surgeries) in our hospital from May 2018 to October 2018 were recruited as the study cohort, with 43 male patients and 31 female patients, and a mean age of (64.8±12.5) years old. All the patients were followed up for 6 months, of whom 25 cases with MGD were included in the MGD group and 49 cases without MGD were included in the control group. All the patients were examined within 30 days and underwent IVCM inspections of the acinar morphology of the tarsal glands (expansion and atrophy), the infiltration of the inflammatory cells in the tarsal gland tissue, and a classification of the fibrosis in the tarsal gland tissue.
Results: The longest and shortest acinar diameters in the MGD patients were significantly greater than they were in the control group, but the acinar areas were smaller than they were in the control group. The meibomian glandular vesicle densities, the average opening diameters, the fibrosis, and the inflammatory cell density in the MGD group were significantly increased.
Conclusion: IVCM plays a vital role in the early diagnosis, in the severity grading, and in the evaluation of the clinical effectiveness of MGD-related diseases, by which the morphological changes of the tarsal gland after phacoemulsification can be observed in a timely manner to predict the occurrence of MGD.
Keywords: IVCM; cataracts; meibomian glands; morphology.
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