Open Access

ARTICLE

Partial Contact Indentation Tonometry for Measurement of Corneal Properties-Independent Intraocular Pressure

Match W L Ko^∗, Leo K K Leung^∗, David C C Lam^∗,†

∗ Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, People Republic of China.
† Corresponding author: David C C Lam, The Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong; Email: david.lam@ust.hk; Tel no.: (+852) 2358-7208

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics 2012, 9(4), 251-268. https://doi.org/10.3970/mcb.2012.009.251

Abstract

Inter-individual differences in corneal properties are ignored in existing methods for measuring intraocular pressure IOP, a primary parameter used in screening and monitoring of glaucoma. The differences in the corneal stiffness between individuals can be more than double and this difference would lead to IOP measurement errors up to 10 mmHg. In this study, an instrumented partial-contact indentation measurement and analysis method that can account for inter-individual corneal difference in stiffness is developed. The method was tested on 12 porcine eyes ex vivo and 7 rabbit eyes in vivo, and the results were compared to the controlled IOPs to determine the method's validity. Analyses showed that without corneal stiffness correction, up to 10 mmHg of measurement error was found between the existing approach and the controlled IOP. With the instrumented indentation and analysis method, less than 2 mmHg of differences were founded between the measured IOP and the controlled IOP. These results showed that instrumented partial-contact indentation can effectively account for inter-individual corneal variations in IOP measurement.

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