Some "old" findings about keratoconus revisited - I

Old belief: Males are predominantly affected by this disease. - Most modern studies with wide bases do not support this. Keratoconus affects both genders in a comparable manner.

Old belief : There is no known precipitating factor for keratoconus. - EYE RUBBING is thought to be a precipitating factor in about half the patients diagnosed with Keratoconus.

Old belief: Allergies are more commonly seen in this group of patients. This stands validated in several newer studies across the world including our own.

ICL for Keratoconus

Implantable contact lens (Staar Surgical, Switzerland) is another tool that is being used to help patients of keratoconus with large refractive errors.

This has shown itself to be a useful method in helping patients with advanced keratoconus and high myopia with cylindrical errors (usually in excess of -10 Diopters with upto -6Diopters cylinder)

It helps this class of patients improve the uncorrected visual acuity and allows use fo glasses for the small residual errors.

However, it may not take away all the visual deficits. As we now understand, it can not take care of the higher order aberrations and thus the quality of vision still remains less than ideal. However, it a great step from not being able to do anything at all.

Good results with C3R for keratoconus

a week back we had one of our patients come in for his sixteen month follow up. C3R was done for his progressing kertoconus in the left eye in April 2007. the visual acuity improved from 6/12 then to 6/6 now. The corneal topography showed significant reduction in the irregular astigmatism as well as the Simulate Keratometry reading.

There are many such patients. The results from our practice are now submitted to a peer reviewed journal for publication.

Keratoconus

Keratoconus is a problem that affects a large number of people. However, in India, there is hardly any awareness about the disease. People affected with this problem are usually left alone to cope with the effects and are forced to grope for answers. We would like to create awareness groups / support groups to help keratoconus affected individuals cope better with this problem.
Any ideas?