effects of smoking on the central corneal thickness

purpose: to evaluate the effects of smoking on the central corneal thickness (cct). methods: in a historical chohort analytic study, referred cases have been divided into two groups (cigarette smokers, and non–cigarette smokers).  laboratory tests including fasting blood sugar (fbs), blood urea nitrogen (bun); and blood pressure were checked. complete eye examination was performed. cct was measured using the pentacam. results: five hundred and eleven male subjects with a mean age of 35.71±9.58 years were included; 261 (51.1%) subjects were nonsmokers and 250 (48, 9%) were smokers.  the smoker group consumed was 14.45±12.82 pack/year. cct in the whole participants was 536.44±30.29 µm; 537.98±30.29 µm in in the smoking group and 534.96±30.11 µm in the in non-smoking group. there was no statistically significant difference in cct between the study groups. to control confounding effects of age and iop on cct, multivariate analyses using linear regression were performed which failed to demonstrate any significant associations between cct and cigarette smoking (p=0.11). conclusion: the results of this study exhibit that cigarette smoking has no effect on cct.