Pachymetry is a simple, painless test that quickly measures the thickness of the cornea.
Why Measure Corneal Thickness?
Corneal thickness as measured by pachymetry is important in the eye care field for several reasons.
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Pachymetry can tell healthcare providers if the cornea is swollen.
However, pachymetry will show a definite increase in thickness.
Corneal thickness is extremely important in refractive surgical procedures such asLASIK.
Knowledge of corneal thickness is important to determine if a person is a candidate for laser vision correction.
Some people may have a cornea that is just much thinner than normal.
Pachymetry has also become important inglaucomacare.
Glaucoma is a disease in which eye pressure (intraocular pressure) can be elevated.
Elevated eye pressure can cause nerve fiber loss in the retina which may result in blindness or decreased vision.
Most methods involve a method of measuring eye pressure in which the instrument touches the cornea.
Researchers discovered that corneal thickness can vary slightly in the population.
This method uses devices that are cost-effective and portable.
Any slight displacement and the reading may not be accurate.
Some ultrasound pachymeters are designed more for glaucoma testing and include built-in risk factor calculators.
Optical Pachymetry:Optical pachymeters vary on design.
Other devices can measure pachymetry using specular microscopy.
This rig does not come into direct contact with the cornea.
One punch in of optical pachymetry that has gained in popularity is OCT oroptical coherence tomographypachymetry.
OCT pachymetry also does not touch the cornea to achieve the measurements.
OCT uses a principle called optical interferometry.
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