RESEARCH ARTICLE
Age-related Changes of the Corneal Endothelium in the Hispanic Elderly Population
Jorge E. Valdez-García1, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2022Volume: 16
E-location ID: e187436412204140
Publisher ID: e187436412204140
DOI: 10.2174/18743641-v16-e2204140
Article History:
Received Date: 18/11/2021Revision Received Date: 3/1/2022
Acceptance Date: 19/1/2022
Electronic publication date: 30/05/2022
Collection year: 2022
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Purpose:
To assess the corneal endothelial morphometry in healthy elderly Hispanic eyes.
Methods:
A retrospective, cross-sectional, observational, descriptive, and analytical study was designed to assess the central region of the corneal endothelium by specular microscopy. A total of 241 eyes from 125 patients were studied. All eyes included were from healthy patients 65 or older (mean: 74.56± 6.74), without ocular disease or surgeries.
Results:
The mean cell density (MCD) was 2198.92±493.43 cells/mm2. 125 (51.87%) eyes had polymegethism, with a mean coefficient of variation (CV) of 42.89 ± 9.16%. 148 (61.41%) eyes presented pleomorphism, with an average of 46.25 ± 7.13% hexagonal cells. The mean corneal thickness was 527.55±28.37 μm. A statistically significant difference between age groups was found for MCD and pachymetry (P<0.05). 41 eyes (17.01%) had cornea guttata.
Conclusion:
This study suggests that the elderly Hispanic population has a high prevalence of polymegethism, pleomorphism, and guttata. Surprisingly, the oldest age group (>85) had an above-average MCD, with lower rates of polymegethism and pleomorphism.
Trial Registration Number: #ARCC/ECH2019
Date of Registration: October 18, 2019