Comparative study on corneal profile and parameters between generations in Albania

Background: Keratoconus is a degenerative corneal disease, which has seen an increase in incidence these last years, including pediatric ages. The main focus of this study is trying to understand if these are only sporadic findings, or there is a real change in the corneal profile that could result in future keratoconus in young patients. Material and Methods: Data was collected from 700 patients, who were examined via three dimensional corneal topography in American Hospital 1. The patients were divided into four groups by age. The studied parameters were: corneal pachymetry in corneal center and thinnest point, keratometry values, maximal value of cornea posterior face, and value of astigmatism. Results: The Group 4 presented the lowest values of corneal thickness in thinnest point and centre of cornea, a difference that was statistically significant (p < 0.001). The values of corneal thickness in the centre of cornea, were higher in the first (pediatric) age group (p < 0.001). The pediatric patients recorded lower values of cornea vertical radius K1 and cornea horizontal radius K2, while patients in the second group exhibited the highest values. However, the differences in values between the groups were not statistically significant. The maximal radius of the cornea was higher in patients from the third group, a result that was not statistically significant (p = 0.17; p = 0.65; p = 0.52). Group 1 and Group 4 presented the lowest values of cornea posterior face and were not statistically different (p = 0.35). Higher values of astigmatism were found in the pediatric group, a difference that was statistically significant compared to the other groups (p = 0.006; p = 0.003; p ≤ 0.001). Conclusion: Keratoconus’ early signs are high values in corneal radius and posterior face of the cornea, low values of corneal thickness, and high astigmatism. In this study, we found that the first group presented high values of corneal astigmatism, but low values of corneal radius and cornea’s posterior face. Also, they presented higher values of corneal thickness. So, there is an increase of corneal astigmatism in pediatric ages, but there were no other predictive signs of keratoconus found in the corneal topography analyses