Purpose: To highlight the magnitude of ocular higher order aberrations (HOA) and lower order aberrations (LOA), including component contributions from corneal and internal planes in Primary Congenital Glaucoma (PCG) patients.
Methods: Consecutive treated PCG patients co-operative for ocular examination and aberrometry, were enrolled over two years for this cross-sectional, comparative, single-center, unmasked study. Best-corrected visual acuity, refraction, IOP, wavefront aberrometry and topography (iTrace) were performed and results were compared with unaffected fellow eyes of unilateral glaucoma patients as well as age and sex-matched controls with no ocular anomalies other than treatable refractive error.
Results: Both eyes of 32 consecutive PCG patients (17 unilateral, 15 bilateral) and 39 controls were enrolled. The median LogMAR corrected distance visual acuity of PCG eyes was 0.68 (IQR: 0.2-1.8). Total ocular (Root mean square (RMS) 1.7 µm vs 0.3 µm, p = 0.014), corneal (RMS 1.1 µm vs 0.3 µm, p = 0.004) and internal (RMS 1.1 µm vs 0.2 µm, p = 0.013) aberrations, as well as HOAs and LOAs at each plane, were significantly higher in PCG eyes than in controls. Component HOAs from corneal and internal planes were positively correlated with each other (p < 0.001; rs: 0.7). Total aberrations were greater in the affected eyes of PCG compared to the rest. The predominant subtype of HOAs in PCG was coma and trefoil. PCG with corneal opacity/Haab's striae had significantly higher astigmatism than the affected eyes with clear corneae at the corneal plane (p = 0.02). The aberrations were not statistically associated with the corneal diameter or refractive error in PCG eyes.
Conclusions: Significantly greater aberrations (Total, HOAs and LOAs, at corneal as well as an internal plane) were seen among eyes affected with PCG. Though the exact impact of these aberrations on the final visual outcome is difficult to determine, these could play a pertinent role in compromising visual function, thus impacting the management of visual rehabilitation in these patients.
Keywords: Ocular aberrations; PCG; iTrace; wavefront aberrometry.