Association between corneal opacity location and amount of astigmatism.

Abstract

PURPOSE: To determine the association between corneal opacity location and amount of astigmatism.

METHOD: It was an institution based study, conducted on a sample of 35 patients having corneal opacity with age limits 15-55 years. Refraction of Patients having different refractive error was performed at Clinical skills lab of College of Ophthalmology and Allied Vision Sciences, Mayo Hospital Lahore.

RESULTS: Most of the studied patients had astigmatism. Among them, the most prevalent type was With The Rule Astigmatism. The pattern was not coherent on the basis of age and gender such that the middle-aged patients and males had more vulnerability to astigmatism. It was further observed that opacity in the vertical meridian was greater than the rest.

CONCLUSION: After a thorough analysis of the data collected from the sample of 35 patients, I concluded that the majority of the patients who suffered from corneal opacity, also had astigmatism. Those with both opacity and astigmatism had either vertical or peripheral opacity with vertical opacity the most prevalent type. While the 10 patients who did not have astigmatism had central opacity. Hence it was identified that there was no vision in such patients. Moreover, among the patients with astigmatism, With the Rule Astigmatism was the most common followed by Against the Rule Astigmatism and Oblique Astigmatism were the least prevalent. Further, it was observed that the middle age group and old aged people showed a pattern of the highest number of the disease.