[Corneal topography of the partner eye in unilateral keratoconus].

PURPOSE: To study the incidence and shape of subclinical keratoconus with corneal topography in the fellow eye in the case of clinically, slit-lamp biomicroscopically and topographically diagnosed unilateral disease.

METHODS

Eighty patients with keratoconus were fitted with contact lenses. Twelve of them revealed clinical features of unilateral disease. In these patients we performed a computed topographic analysis in the clinically normal fellow eye. We measured quantitative parameters (central corneal power, I-S value) and qualitative parameters (localization and shape of corneal steepening).

RESULTS

In all 12 patients we found in the fellow eye no slit-lamp evidence for keratoconus. Nine patients were emmetropic in the fellow eye, three patients myopic between -1.5 and -4.0 D. The myopia in these patients was corrected with contact lenses and the investigation was performed 5 days after discontinuance of contact lenses. The corneal topography showed the typical keratoconus pattern in 11 patients with a steepening of the inferior cornea and in 1 case a superior steepening of the cornea; range of I-S values -1.0 to +5.0 D. All patients revealed a configuration of oval type cone keratoconus in the corneal topography.

CONCLUSION

Keratoconus occurs with a high degree of bilaterality, but with onset of the disease at different times in the two eyes. Corneal topography seems to be a sufficient method to detect early keratoconus.