[Transepithelial corneal collagen crosslinking in patients with progressive keratoconus].

PURPOSE: To assess the effectiveness of transepithelial collagen crosslinking (CXL) in patients with keratoconus.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study involved 44 patients (44 eyes) with stage I-II progressive keratoconus. Patients were divided into two groups. The 1st group included 22 patients that had underwent transepithelial CXL. The 2nd group included 22 patients that had underwent traditional CXL.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: All patients of the group 2 all patients had corneal syndrome, which lasted 2-4 days. In the 1st group, 98% of the patients did not have corneal syndrome and their visual acuity (VA) was same as preoperative on the next day after the surgery. In the 2nd group, the mean level of postoperative pain was 1.7 times higher than in group 1 (p<0.05). Six months after the treatment, uncorrected VA (UCVA) in the 1st group has increased by 52%, the best corrected VA (BCVA) - by 17%, in the 2nd group UCVA increased by 53%, BCVA - by 20% (p<0.05). The demarcation line in the 2nd group was 2.2 times deeper than in the 1st group (p<0.05). Six months after the treatment in the 1st group mean K1, K2 and Km decreased by 1.5%, 2.3% and 1.7% respectively (p>0.05); in the 2nd group - by 3.6%, 3.9% and 4.1% (p<0.05) compared with the data before the surgery. One year after the treatment, mean Kmax in the 1st group decreased by 2.1%, in the 2nd group - by 3.9%. Differences with preoperative values were statistically significant only in the 2nd group.

CONCLUSION: Transepitelial CXL is a safe procedure well tolerated by patients and leading to a rapid restoration of visual function. Transepithelial CXL proved to have reduced effectiveness in inducing improvement in keratometric values, its effect on visual acuity was likely to be similar to that of epithelium-off CXL.