Clinical-epidemiological characteristics of keratoconus in the pediatric age

Abstract

Introduction: keratoconus appears as a corneal ectasia, typical in adolescents and young adults, which affects corneal morphology and vision.

Objective: to describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of keratoconus in the pediatric age in Ciego de Ávila province.

Method: a transversal descriptive observational study was carried out, the universe was constituted by 86 eyes of 56 children diagnosed with keratoconus in the corneal ectasia consultation of the Ophthalmological Center of Ciego de Ávila in the biennium February 2014 to January 2016. Variables were analyzed such as: age, sex, symptoms, signs, visual acuity without correction and better corrected, refractive defect, pachymetric, keratometric values, topographic indexes and degrees of keratoconus evolution.

Results: male sex prevailed and the age group of 14 to 17 years old. The most frequent symptom was blurred vision and Fleischer's ring sign. The majority of patients presented a visual acuity without correction less than 0,2, with an improvement over 0,5 once corrected. The compound myopic astigmatism predominated over the rest of the refractive defects. The most frequent pachymetric values oscillated between 501 μm and 550 μm, and the keratometry up to 48 diopters. The differentiated sector index was the most altered in the corneal topography and keratoconus grade I prevailed