Corneal ectasia in mothers of Down syndrome children

Abstract

Abstract In this study, corneal findings regarding keratoconus (KC) and early KC among mothers with Down syndrome children (MDS) and a group of age-at-delivery-matched mothers with normal children (MNC) were compared. KC was diagnosed based on the presence of a clinical sign and at least one abnormal tomographic or biomechanical criterion. Early KC was defined as having no clinical sign in the presence of at least one abnormal tomographic or biomechanical criterion. The normal subgroups in each group were compared in terms tomographic and biomechanical parameters. In MDS and MNC, the prevalence rates were 6.5% and 1.6% for KC (P = 0.047), and 30.9% and 14.3% for early KC (P = 0.014), respectively. Comparison between the two normal subgroups showed significant differences in mean index of height asymmetry, irregularity index, anterior asphericity, pentacam random forest index, corneal stiffness parameters at first applanation, deformation amplitude ratios, integrated radius-1 mm, highest concavity deflection amplitude, biomechanical corrected IOP, peak distance, and radius (all P < 0.05). This study showed that MDS are more likely to have KC and also to have thinner, steeper and softer corneas compared to MNC. This results support the need for further work for determining the risk of delivering a child with DS.