K eratoconus (OMIM148300) is a bilateral, non-inflammatory, slowly progressive, corneal ectasia that is a major cause of corneal transplant. Characteristically, the cornea becomes thin and conical, with myopia and irregular astigmatism that leads to vision impairment. The incidence of keratoconus is between 50 and 230 per 100 000, with remarkable differences between ethnic groups. Although the ...

In the creation of a smart future information society, Internet of Things (IoT) and Content Centric Networking (CCN) break two key barriers for both the front-end sensing and back-end networking. However, we still observe the missing piece of the research that dominates the current design, e.g., lacking of the knowledge penetrated into both sensing and networking to glue them holistically. In t...

BACKGROUND Keratoconus is a noninflammatory disease characterized by thinning and scarring of the central portion of the cornea. The etiology is unclear. In this study, we sought to identify mRNAs that are differentially expressed in the stroma of keratoconus corneas in comparison to those of corneas from normal individuals and patients with other corneal diseases. MATERIALS AND METHODS Total...

PURPOSE To survey the standard keratoconus grading scale (Pentacam®-derived Amsler-Krumeich stages) compared to corneal irregularity indices and best spectacle-corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA). PATIENTS AND METHODS Two-hundred and twelve keratoconus cases were evaluated for keratoconus grading, anterior surface irregularity indices (measured by Pentacam imaging), and subjective refract...

WHY EARLY DIAGNOSIS? In corneal refractive surgery, early diagnosis of keratoconus (subclinical asymptomatic keratoconus) is of great importance in patients seeking surgery because it can prevent progression of the pathology after surgery and make it symptomatic (corneal ectasia), thus creating the need for diagnostic tests that provide high sensitivity (ability to detect the disease in affecte...

PURPOSE To evaluate corneal cell morphology in patients with keratoconus using an in vivo slit scanning confocal microscope. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the corneal cell morphology of 47 keratoconus patients and 32 healthy eyes without any ocular disease. New keratoconus patients with different disease severities and without any other ocular co-morbidity were rec...

Background. Keratoconus is a relatively common corneal disease causing significant visual disability. Individuals with connective tissue disorders that affect the skin such as Marfan's syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome or patients with atopic dermatitis show an increased prevalence of keratoconus. It seems that there are some concurrent alterations of skin and cornea in patients with keratoco...

Keratoconus, historically viewed as a non-inflammatory disease, is an ectatic corneal disorder associated with progressive thinning of the corneal stroma. Recently, a few inflammatory mediators have been reported to be elevated in the tear fluid of keratoconus patients. Consequently, we investigated a wide range of inflammation regulating cytokines in the tears and sera of keratoconus and contr...

PURPOSE Keratoconus is characterized by thinning and scarring of the central region of the cornea. Previous research showed that, in corneas obtained from patients with keratoconus, lysosomal enzyme activities are elevated, whereas levels of protease inhibitors such as alpha1-proteinase inhibitor are reduced. This study was undertaken to examine further the expression of a spectrum of proteolyt...

Purpose. To build new models with the Ocular Response Analyzer (ORA) waveform parameters to create new indices analogous to established topographic keratoconus indices. Method. Biomechanical, tomographic, and topographic measurements of 505 eyes from the Homburger Keratoconus Centre were included. Thirty-seven waveform parameters (WF) were derived from the biomechanical measurement with the ORA...