Corneal Curvature As It Relates To Corneal Thickness.

Purpose: To better understand the anatomical relationship between corneal thickness and corneal curvature. To potentially allow keratometry measurements to provide further insight of a patient's corneal thickness when pachymetry is unavailable.
Methods: Subjects: 39 20-30 year old males and females (78 eyes) with no prior history of corneal surgery, pathology, or trauma that would alter shape and/or thickness
of the cornea.
Procedure: Senior students performed keratometry using a manual keratometer followed
by central corneal pachymetry using the DGH 5100 E Combination A-Scan/Pachymeter on each volunteer. Keratometry readings in the two principle meridians were averaged and used for analysis. Five pachymetry readings were taken for each eye and the average was used for analysis.
Analysis: A Pearson Product-Moment Correlation also know as the Pearson Correlation
Coefficient was used to analyze the data. Results: Based on the correlation coefficients and p values, no statistically significant correlation was found between average keratometry and pachymetry readings.
Conclusions: Practitioners are not able to infer corneal thickness based on average keratometry readings. In order to obtain accurate readings, both corneal thickness and
curvature must be measured separately or by the use of other instrumentation.