Quantitative Assessment of Corneal Clarity in Keratoconus: A Case Control Study of Corneal Densitometry

Purpose To evaluate corneal clarity quantitatively by corneal densitometry measurement in treatment-naive keratoconus patients and to compare these results with those of healthy control subjects. Methods Corneal densitometry measurement of consecutive treatment-naive keratoconus patients and healthy control subjects was performed by Scheimpflug corneal topography (Pentacam®HR). Corneal densitometry measurements were expressed in gray scale unit (GSU) and the data from the right eyes of subjects were used for statistical analysis. Results A total of 102 subjects (51 patients with keratoconus [27 male, 24 female] and 51 healthy control subjects [24 male, 27 female]) were included in the study. There was no statistically significant difference with regard to the mean age (p = 0.910) or distribution of sex (p = 0.552) between the groups. There were significant differences in corneal densitometry values of the groups in central 2 mm (17.95 ± 0.33 GSU in keratoconus and 16.43 ± 0.24 GSU in controls, p