Stodtmeister R.

Ambulante Operationen, Pirmasens

Aims/background: According to our present knowledge, adjustment of the readings on our applanation tonometers in accordance with corneal thickness appears to be necessary. The experimental data have, for ethical reasons, only been recorded from a limited number of persons. The demand for a correction of applanation measurement values from clinically available data is thus worth testing. In this study, the association of applanation force, corneal thickness and corrected intraocular pressure is investigated.
Methods: All persons examined were over 39 years of age: of these, 379 persons had no signs of glaucoma, and 179 were diagnosed as ocular hypertensives. Methods: Goldmann applanation tonometry, ultrasound pachometry
Results: The correlation coefficient for the applanation force vs. corneal thickness is 0.17 in persons with normal eyes, and 0.17 in those patients with ocular hypertension. At 0.52 and 0.56 respectively, this coefficient is considerably greater when we are dealing with the relation between the "true" (corrected) intraocular pressure and the corneal thickness.
Conclusions: Corneal thickness determines to a considerable extent the assessment of intraocular pressure. The procedure nowadays generally applied, i.e. determination of the applanation force alone via linear conversion to intraocular pressure, should be abandoned. Nevertheless, a considerably better assessment of the "true" intraocular pressure can be expected if we first measure the applanation force, and then adjust using a correction value from the corneal thickness measured.

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