Determination of the corneal thickness profile by optical pachometry.

A clinical method of measuring central-peripheral corresponding values of corneal thickness and measurement positions in the horizontal meridian is described. Employing a fitting procedure it is demonstrated that the relative increase in the corneal thickness from apex to limbus is proportional to the square of the chord distance. The proportionality factor is defined as the coefficient of thickness variation (TV). Tm is defined as the minimal corneal thickness. In relation to the visual axis the chord distance xm denote the temporal or nasal position of Tm. TV, Tm and xm are characteristic constants of a particular eye. Measuring the corneal thickness and the chord distance in mm pooled values of 80 eyes demonstrates (means +/- SD) Tm to be 0.575 +/- 0.027, and TV to be 0.0088 +/- 0.0020. With the normal interval in parenthes these results imply an enlargement of corneal thickness 0.9% (0.4-1.3%) 1 mm and 22% (12-32%) 5 mm from the visual axis. With respect to the position of Tm 21 eyes (26%) showed a median temporal displacement at 0.4 mm, 4 eyes (5%) showed a median nasal displacement at 0.3 mm and 55 eyes (69%) showed no significant displacement. This corresponds to the usual angle kappa value, which clinically expresses the often slight nasal decentration of the visual axis relative to the optic axis.