Comparing Central Corneal Thickness Using Ultrasound And Anterior Segment Optical Coherence Tomography Pachymetry In Adults Attending A Private Eye Clinic In Abuja.

Background: Central Corneal Thickness (CCT) measurement is useful in managing glaucoma, ocular hypertension, corneal lesions and kerato-refractive surgeries. The study aims to compare the CCT measurements between Ultrasound Sonography (USS) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to analyze the correlation and agreement between these instruments and the repeatability of each instrument.

Methodology: A cross-sectional comparative study was carried out in 100 eyes of 50 patients attending Rachel Eye Center in Abuja from January to March 2021. The CCT was taken using the USS and OCT. CCT was measured using the Pachscan ultrasound and the Optovue machine utilised for the OCT technique. Data were analysed using SPSS version 20 using Paired Sample t-Test, Pearson’s correlation, Interclass Correlation and Bland Altman Methods.

Results: Patients were between 18 and 79 (mean age of 39.1), 72 males and 28 females. The mean CCT was 537.36 ±33.26 and 510.94 ±33.13 for USS and OCT, respectively, with a mean difference of (26.42±9.53 p<0.001). There was a very strong correlation between the two sets of measurements, r = 0.997 p<0.001. There was a high average mean intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.843 between the two instruments, and this was excellent (0.961) within the 95 percentile upper limit but poor in the (0.096) lower limit. There was a high correlation and no statistically significant difference in comparing repeated mean USS and OCT measurements. There was an excellent average mean Intraclass Correlation Coefficient of 0.999/0.997 for the repeated OCT and USS values, which was found to be excellent(0.999/0.998) within the 95 percentile upper limit and (0.997/0.994)lower limit, respectively.

Conclusion: We find that measurements of CCT using the Pachscan ultrasound and Optovue OCT correlate well, but the mean Pachscan measures were significantly higher than Optovue measures.