Correlation of central corneal thickness with central macular thickness in premature infants

Aim: To evaluate the relationship between the central corneal thickness (CCT) and central macular thickness (CMT) in premature infants.Material and Methods: All infants with a birth weight of less than 2.500 g or with a gestation period of less than 36 weeks were included in the study. Data including birth week, birth weight, age, and body weight at the time of imaging, and weight gain were recorded. The central, superior, nasal, temporal, and inferior macular and corneal thicknesses were measured using the spectraldomain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). The correlation between macular and corneal thicknesses and multiple factors including birth week, birth weight, age, and body weight at the time of imaging, and weight gain were analyzed.Results: A total of 74 premature infants were included in the study. The mean birth week and birth weight were 30.5±2.8 weeks and 1520.3±495.3 g, respectively. There were significant positive correlations between the central macular thicknesses and the central (p=0.036, r=0.246), superior (p=0.019, r=0.273), nasal (p=0.035, r=0.248), and inferior (p=0.041, r=0.240) corneal thicknesses. There were significant negative correlations between the central (p=0.021, r=-0.378), superior (p=0.044, r=-0.334), nasal (p=0.002, r=- 0.491), inferior (p=0.001, r=-0.526), temporal (p=0.018, r=-0.387) corneal thicknesses and age at the time of imaging.Conclusion: Our study results suggest that there were significant and positive correlations of the central macular thicknesses with the central, superior, nasal and inferior corneal thicknesses. Corneal thickness was significantly negative correlated with age at the time of imaging.

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