INFERIOR STEEPENING IS ASSOCIATED WITH THINNING OF THE INFEROTEMPORALCORNEA

PURPOSE: Videokeratography has enabled detection of inferior steepenin g patterns in patients thereby designated as keratoconus suspects. Sin ce no information about the corneal thickness of these eyes is availab le, we studied several patients with such patterns, and compared the c orneal thickness of their eyes with that of normals. METHODS: Three gr oups of patients who had undergone videokeratography were studied with ultrasonic pachymetry centrally and in four quadrants at the 3-mm cle ar zone: 44 eyes with true keratoconus, 23 eyes of individuals with in ferior steepening of the cornea who were family members of patients wi th keratoconus; and 44 normal eyes never fitted with contact lenses. T he corneal thickness of the eyes in the first two groups was then comp ared with that in the third using ANOVA and Student's t test. RESULTS: Corneal thickness in the normal eyes and in those with inferior steep ening was similar in all except the inferotemporal quadrant. In this q uadrant, the corneas of the eyes with inferior steepening mere thinner than those of the normal eyes: 544 +/- 32 mu m vs 581 +/- 30 mu m (p < .05) CONCLUSION: Eyes with inferior steepening on videokeratography have thinner inferotemporal corneas than normal eyes.