Human corneal thickness using a noncontact specular microscope

The aim of this work was to study the central corneal thickness values and interobserver variability using a noncontact specular microscope. Methods: 62 eyes from 31 healthy subjects were studied with the Topcon SP-2000P noncontact specular microscope (Topcon Corp., Tokyo, Japan). 16 (51.61%) were females, and 15 (48.38%) were males. The mean age of the sample was 31.83±5.68 years. The mean of three consecutive measurements of the central corneal thickness was recorded by two investigators. Results: Mean central corneal thickness was 497±53 mm for physician I and 497±51 mm for physician II (p=0.982). No significant differences were found between the left and right corneas (p=0.999), between females and males (p=0.756), between ≤ 29-years-olds and ≥ 30years-olds (p=0.945) or between myopic and hyperopic eyes (p=0.994). Conclusion: Noncontact specular microscopy is a recently introduced anatomical tool that can be used to study the human cornea in vivo.