Original articleInflammatory Molecules in the Tears of Patients with Keratoconus
Section snippets
Subjects and Examinations
We have designed a prospective, case-controlled study in which 28 patients with keratoconus and 20 normal subjects were enrolled. Patients with keratoconus had never worn contact lenses or had not worn lenses for a period of more than 1 year (52.3% males; mean age, 22.4±6.5 years). Normal subjects had never worn contact lenses (47.8% males; mean age, 22.6±6.6 years). We studied 1 eye from each patient, generally the right eye. Exclusion criteria included the existence of active inflammatory or
Clinical Features
No age-related or gender-related statistical differences were detected between patients with keratoconus and control subjects. The duration of patient-reported keratoconus varied from 1 to 16 years (mean, 7.0–6.2 years). Only 1 patient (5%) from the control group was diagnosed as having allergic disease, whereas 16 patients (57.1%) from the keratoconus group had experienced at least 1 allergic episode. Eighteen patients with keratoconus (64.3%) admitted frequent and vigorous eye rubbing; no
Discussion
Despite extensive basic and clinical studies of keratoconus in recent years, the precise mechanisms underlying this pathology still remain largely unknown. Most of these studies used corneas that had been obtained from transplants, and erroneous conclusions have been drawn from a number of these studies.20 Moreover, it has been shown that the reported increased levels of TNF-α and IL-1 are not specific to keratoconus but are present in other pathologies of the cornea as well.8 Nevertheless,
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Manuscript no. 240507.
The authors have no proprietary interest in any of the products mentioned in the article.