Corneal aberrations after corneal collagen crosslinking treatment in patients with progressive keratoconus

Purpose: To evaluate one year results of the effects corneal collagen crosslinking treatment on the corneal aberrations in patients with progressive keratoconus. Materials and Methods: 49 eyes of 47 patients with progressive keratoconus were enrolled into the study. 20 (%43) of them were male and 27 (%57) were female. All patients underwent full ophthalmological examination including the uncorrected distance visual acuity (UDVA), corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA), intraocular pressure measurement, detailed slit lamp examination, dilated fundus examination, corneal topographic measurements and their data were recorded. Results: The mean age of the patients was 17.53 ± 5.57 years (range 9-35 years). The mean follow-up was 12 months. At 1 year; there was improvement in both UDVA and CDVA. Corneal astigmatism was significantly decreased (p=0.013). The mean cornea anterior surface aberration values RMS total, RMS LOA, RMS HOA, spherical aberration, defocus, vertical coma aberration were significantly decreased (p<0.001, p<0.001, p<0.001, p=0.003, p<0.001, p<0.001; respectively). There was no significant changes in posterior corneal surface aberrations compared to preoperative measurements (p>0.05). The mean cornea total surface values RMS total, RMS LOA, RMS HOA, spherical aberration, defocus, vertical coma aberrations decreased significantly (p<0.001, p<0.001, p<0.001, p=0.003, p<0.001, p<0.001; respectively). There was significant correlations between preoperative CDVA and preoperative cornea total surface RMS HOA (p=0.016, r:0.342 ) and between preoperative CDVA and preoperative spherical abberations (p<0.001, r:-0.492). After CXL, improvement in the corneal total surface defocus aberrations were correlated with the improvement in CDVA (p=0.04, r:-0.294). We did not observe complications after the surgery in all patients. Conclusion: In this study we observed that the corneal anterior and total surface aberrations, UDVA and CDVA improved after corneal collagen cross linking. We observed that corneal collagen cross linking treatment is safe and effective in progressive keratoconus during the one year follow-up. Key Words: Keratoconus, corneal aberrations, corneal topography, corneal collagen cross linking, wavefront