Calcified corneal nerves.

PURPOSE: To report a case of calcified corneal nerves in an eye with long-standing diabetic eye disease.

METHODS: This is a case report where the clinical diagnosis was made using a slit-lamp biomicroscope and confirmed using in vivo confocal microscopy. Photoslit-lamp images were taken for both eyes, and nerve thickness measurements made using ImageJ software.

RESULTS: A 70-year-old British white woman showed band keratopathy in the right eye and dense white lines and dots in her left cornea on slit-lamp examination. The left corneal images had an appearance exactly similar to stromal nerves and terminal bulbs reported before. In vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) of the left cornea showed hyperreflective and thickened stromal and sub-Bowman nerves and their characteristic termination in bulbous thickenings.

CONCLUSIONS: Clinically detected corneal nerve calcification has not been described before. This report presents the direct visualization of calcified corneal nerves and their terminal bulbs and IVCM characteristics.