Assessment of corneal thickness in soft contact lens users using anterior segment optical coherence tomography

Purpose: The aim was to evaluate the corneal thicknesses ofsoft contact lens (SCL) wearers using anterior segmentoptical coherence tomography (AS‐OCT).Method: The epithelial and overall thicknesses of both thecentral cornea and the nasal and temporal cornea of SCLwearers (25 subjects) were obtained by As-OCT andcompared with those of refraction‐matched controls(25subjects) and patients with emmetropia (25 subjects).Results: The mean corneal epithelial thicknesses in SCL wearing,spectacle‐wearing and emmetropic groups were48.13±2.385µm ,51.915±2.81µm and 53.13±2.105µm , respectively. Thecorneal epithelium of members of the SCL group was significantlythinner than in both the spectacles and emmetropic groups (p = 0.000 and0.006, respectively), whereas the central corneal thickness in SCLwearing,spectacle wearing and emmetropic groups were517.67±21.95µm, 562.525±20.575µm,547.825±26.71µmrespectively.the corneal thickness of SCL group was significantly thinnerthan both the spectacles and emmetropic groups.Conclusions: Contact lens wear is related to thinning of both cornealthickness and epithelium. AS‐OCT is a non‐invasive and clinicallyapplicable technique for assessing the involvement of the cornea incontact lens wearers.